#im dumb and dont know how to read more on the new post editor :' )

[akashicpoint]

From my knowledge, the director for NMH2 wasn't Suda and had just gone to him asking for some permission to use some things. The cutscene w Nathen w the two (black) women being brutally slashed to pieces without regrets only to FF a bit to Travis feeling sorry about blowing up a group of (white) cheerleaders def didn't sit right with me. (Then again, Shinobu isn't treated very well in 3 either, but i think that's bc Marvelous cut out 3hours worth of Game content, PLUS us fighting with Bad Girl and Shinobu, so either way, Girl cant catch a break)

Yea! It was Nobutaka Ichiki who directed NMH2.

Also thankfully, I think it's a common sentiment that the Nathan scene was super weird and out of character. NMH2 is such a weird weird game in how it handles its characters. It's one of my biggest issues with the game. Travis has already shown that he's not one to attack those that can't fight back like we see with him chastizing Shinobu for killing her classmates and again with Bad Girl for killing the clone gimps (calling her a perverted killing maniac). So, for him to just kill these two black women without a second thought (as if he doesn't have good reflexes/shadow step to just dodge) is so weird and has made him worse than how he was in NMH1, but that's really how I felt the whole game tbh. Minus some moments like with Alice.

And you could say "Oh he's just struck with grief he's not thinking clearly", but like you said he later shows regret for killing the cheerleaders (even though they were ACTUALLY ASSASSINS) so it's just a moot point. It leaves such a bad taste in my mouth on top of having to see how Shinobu is treated throughout NMH2, another black woman. This isn't to say the other girls in nmh2 aren't treated poorly or very weirdly (minus the syndrome sisters) but when every scene with Shinobu is someone berating her, calling her weird, or throwing weird sexual threats at her, it becomes tiring.

NMH2 is just...a very very weird game and I can only really compare it to Drakengard 2, but I will say that at least Drakengard 2 is a bit more respectful of the characters from the prior installment. Both games get so close sometimes to their predecessor but just fall flat. Both had good soundtracks at least :'^). (both games were the only ones to have someone else as the director before their respective directors stepped back in).

I think TSA does well with her character (I'm replaying as her rn so I can't fully comment on it) and gives her backstory/treats her better. As for NMH3, it seems a lot had to be cut from that game (I feel a lot of Henry's happening was cut as well) so I can only be disappointed that she and Bad Girl took the backseat in that game and hope that maybe we will finally get that Shinobu side game Suda has mentioned wanting to make.

[la5t-res0rt]

Wanted to ask about beetlelyds, sorry, I thought it was technically cannon? Like in the old comics after the show ended she grew up and married him. Sorry I’m an old school fan and have no idea why this whole thing is such a big deal. Wasn’t the actor like 20 too? I’m sorry if I sound very dumb. I’m not used to this new tumblr.

youre fine you are one hundred percent allowed to especially when you do it civilly as you have done here

first of all the biggest issue faced in the whole what is and is not canon debate is the fact that there are three (four if you count the limited comics run) publicized iterations of my media

i will go over each very briefly just kidding this is going to a long answer so i will spare the dashboard with a readmore

there is the movie which im sure you dont need me to explain the plot since youre an old school fan but basically the climax is that yes beetlejuice does go for the marriage angle in exchange for stopping the exorcism of adam and barbara and his motive for this is so that he can cause as much chaos as he wants on the mortal coil but his plan is thwarted when barbara rides a sandworm into the house which promptly eats beetlejuice sending him to bureaucratic death limbo

the end of the movie features the deetz and the maitlands happily living together with lydia havign a new appreciation for her situation and beetlejuice gets his head made real small which is very funny haha 

so no in the movie they are not canon editors note the actress who played lydia winona ryder was a teenager while filming the movie she turned 17 the year it released 

the next is the cartoon which i will admit has the most grounds for being considered canon but in the end the show is about a middle schooler and her best friend who is a ghost which in itself is a pretty iffy gray area sort of thing but for a childrens cartoon to work a friendship is better than the obvious enemy status they held in the movie

anyway in the cartoon they are potrayed to be very close friends with lydia being the person beetlejuice cares about the most and honestly if you were to watch it with no prior knowledge of the media and if you ignored their massive and obvious age difference than yeah you probably would read it as a romantic relationship 

however lydia is a middle schooler and that is simply immoral

there have been writers for the cartoon who have been credited to say that a relationship is what they were trying to invoke but for obvious reasons they couldnt exactly move forward with that angle with them establishing that lydia is a child in middle school and a fully grown adult man dating a child who is in middle school is immoral and also illegal in the united states and in canada 

this isnt a good argument for whether or not something is canon and i will tell you why with one simple name and that is luke weber

if you dont know who luke weber is he was a storyboard artist on the cartoon steven universe he is known for making a lot of self ship artwork of him and the character pearl

he worked on the show isnt his material canon no of course it isnt it wasnt put in the actual publication and also if memory serves he was eventually asked to leave the project after he drew art of the shows creator giving him permission to date pearl and calling them her otp and a lot of fans hated this because the most generally accepted interpretation of pearls character is that she is sapphic so a lot of people took issue however that again is just a widely perceived headcanon it is never stated what her actual sexuality is no one in that show is because it isnt a show about that its about wait im getting off topic sorry

what im saying is what can truly be considered canon is what you see on the screen and with the cartoon they are definitely the most friendly with each other and that is why so many people in the beetlebabe shipping community take so much stock in the cartoon because it is the easiest to read the relationship between the mas romantic although that is not what the show actually provides in black and white terms

interpretation does not equal canon and in this case no matter what anyone says the fact remains that in the cartoon itself they are friends good friends yes but friends all the same

it is definitely not a show about a grown man grooming an adult and if it were you definitely shouldn’t be stanning it the extreme because grooming a minor is wrong and it is apparently a problem in the fandom

anyway if the cartoon and the movie are both products of their time and there was more leniency on content bear in mind this was the same era as notorious animation powerhouse and known predator john k who was a showrunner on ren and stimpy and he maintained a relationship with a teenager which was an open secret that nobody really took issue with because in that time being a woman in the animation industry was tricky business and your career could be ended easily if you rejected advances luckily time has moved forward and the animation industry although still full of problems of a similar nature at least people are getting called out and punished for it

you can look more into that yourself its really upsetting though

as for comics i havent been able to find good scans of them and im not willing to purchase them but in my search i never found anything about the two of them ever being married in the cartoon again because she is a child i did find a cover where he appears to be getting married and hes asking lydia to get him out of it but im not sure where the comic actually goes all i know is she is standing off to the side shrugging and looking like she doesnt really care

anyway that brings us to the musical which is set in the modern day 

in the original libretto lydia is described as thirteen but since they got an actress who was older in the updated librettos she is listed as 15 and the story is pretty similar to the movie the young girl befriends ghosts and they try to scare her family out etc etc

the major difference between the film and the musical are that lydia and beetlejuice are more like friends like in the cartoon 

she summons him to help scare after the maitlands attempt doesnt really work so he shows up and they have fun terrorizing people together however she drops him for the opportunity to perhaps get her mom back but when no one will help she goes back to beetlejuice who tricks her into almost exorcising barbara

she agrees to marry him in order to stop the exorcism and he only wants to get married so he can be alive again and cause problems on the mortal coil like in the movie in the musical he states several times its a green card thing whihc obviously doesnt make it okay but still

anyway lydia tricks him and runs off into the underworld before the wedding can happen blah blah blah she goes back blah blah and she agrees to go through with the wedding to save her friends and family with a plan to make him go away for good

theres a very tongue and cheek song called creepy old guy which points out how wrong the whole thing is but everyone is going along with it in a very comedic matter and it includes the line 

i cant believe some cultures think this kind of things alright

basically saying yeah this is very very wrong anyway they do get married and beeltjeuice is alive for like 6 seconds before lydia stabs him to death with bad art and he dies thus nullifying the marriage because death do you part etc

so in the musical no at the end of the show they are not canon because he is dead their marriage is nullified and they go their separate ways

anyway sorry about that i just need to make it very clear that these three properties are all very distinct from each other and basically all three are indeed canon since they are publicized material and arguing the validity of which one is pointless editors note all actresses who played with the exception of dana steingold were minors for the majority of their runs as lydia with sophia ann caruso the originator of the role turning 18 during the run and dana being in her late twenties presley ryan however was a minor the whole time and still is one

tldr no they aren’t canon but to the credit of some people in this fandom their interpretation isnt too far of a stretch thanks to the era and some of the writers wishing to imply a relationship between an adult and a child

i also need to address how this is all a big deal and i suggest you take a peak through my discourse tag and check out @leedia‘s blog to see some of the more harmful things done by beetlebabe shippers

the beetlejuice fandom is home to many minors after the musical came out since musical fandom is vast and the ages of its members varies and normalizing pedophilia is harmful to them not to mention the people who have been effected by sexual harassment at the hands of adults

both sides have victims of csa but one side continues to perpetuate the cycle by showing time and time again that this behavior is normal and easily romanticized in the name of coping and literally anyone who has ever been to a good and credible therapist could tell you that posting cp even if it is simulated cp isnt a really good way to cope and you can get mad at me for saying that its totally fine but and im going to remove my character veil here for just a second as a csa survivor myself i think its harmful to not only myself but many others ok the veil is back down

tldr again there is a lot of bullying and harassment going on with both sides having their own issues but there is one side whos issues run a bit deeper in my humble opinion 

thank you for your question it allowed me to talk a lot you are welcome to discuss further with me in dms if you wish i honestly recommend giving the musical a listen because it is very fun and despite what some people say its very clever and if you get a chance to see a boot of it its visually stunning

one last note that i couldnt really fit in here but a large portion of the beetlebabes shipping community ignore the musical because it openly condemns the idea of beeltejuice and lydia having a relationship and a lot of the antis take issue with much of the writing and characterizations of the cartoon just a note that i think is important since were talking about canon

[patriotsnet]

Did Trump Ever Say Republicans Are Stupid

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/did-trump-ever-say-republicans-are-stupid/

Did Trump Ever Say Republicans Are Stupid

Trump Secretly Mocks His Christian Supporters

Donald Trump Tells Oprah in 1988 What He Would Do as President

Former aides say that in private, the president has spoken with cynicism and contempt about believers.

One day in 2015, Donald Trump beckoned Michael Cohen, his longtime confidant and personal attorney, into his office. Trump was brandishing a printout of an article about an Atlanta-based megachurch pastor trying to raise $60 million from his flock to buy a private jet. Trump knew the preacher personallyCreflo Dollar had been among a group of evangelical figures who visited him in 2011 while he was first exploring a presidential bid. During the meeting, Trump had reverently bowed his head in prayer while the pastors laid hands on him. Now he was gleefully reciting the impious details of Dollars quest for a Gulfstream G650.

Trump seemed delighted by the scam, Cohen recalled to me, and eager to highlight that the pastor was full of shit. Theyre all hustlers, Trump said.

The presidents alliance with religious conservatives has long been premised on the contention that he takes them seriously, while Democrats hold them in disdain. In speeches and interviews, Trump routinely lavishes praise on conservative Christians, casting himself as their champion. My administration will never stop fighting for Americans of faith, he declared at a rally for evangelicals earlier this year. Its a message his campaign will seek to amplify in the coming weeks as Republicans work to confirm Amy Coney Barretta devout, conservative Catholicto the Supreme Court.

The People Whom President Trump Has Called Stupid

Since he declared his candidacy for the presidency, no group has been deemed stupid by Donald Trump more frequently than Americas leaders. There are stupid people running the country, he said over and over and over again on the campaign trail; making stupid deals with Iran and stupid deals on trade. Everyone in charge was dumb and he wasnt except that he was stupid for self-funding his campaign. That, in broad strokes, was Trumps rhetoric in 2015 and 2016.

But that wasnt the full extent of it. When Trump tweeted disparagement of LeBron James and CNNs Don Lemon Friday night, it was a reminder that Trump often divides the world into two groups: those who are stupid and those who arent. It was also a reminder that, of late, Trump has often chosen to describe as stupid people who are not white.

That wasnt always the case. Before the presidential election, Trump mostly disparaged white people as stupid.

Of course, back then, his political opponents were mostly white people: those running against him in the Republican primary and the conservative establishment broadly opposed to his candidacy. He called Karl Rove, former George W. Bush adviser, stupid five times, including in interviews. Bloombergs Tim OBrien, whom Trump once sued unsuccessfully for alleged libel, earned the description three times, as did television host Glenn Beck.

Since President Trumps inauguration, though, that has changed.

It wasnt Obama.

The Dumbest Stuff Donald Trump Has Ever Said

Paul J Richards/AFP/Getty

Americas favorite faux-political shock jock came back with a vengeance two weeks ago when, during a press conference to announce his candidacy for the presidency, he characterized all Mexican immigrants as drug-peddling rapists.

The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody elses problems, he said. When Mexico sends its people, theyre not sending their best. Theyre not sending you. Theyre sending people that have lots of problems, and theyre bringing those problems with us. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

The comments ended up getting both him and his television programs booted from NBC. After a public pressure campaign that racked up more than 200,000 petition signatures, the network decried his words as derogatory. Trump, as to be expected, railed against NBC. Instead of apologizing for his words, he later asserted that his stance on immigration is correct.

Its not the first time Trump has insulted Americas southern neighbor. This past February, when Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu took home an Oscar for his film Birdman, Trump offered dubious congratulations. Well it was a great night for Mexico, as usual in this country It was a great night for Mexico. This guy kept getting up and up and up. I said, you know, whats he doing? Hes walking away with all the gold.

On African-Americans:

Laziness is a trait in blacks.

On women:

On religion:

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Trump ‘knows Republicans Are Stupid’ Jared Kushner Allegedly Said To Former Editor

Greg Price U.S.Jared KushnerDonald TrumpRepublicans

One of the strategies Donald Trump employed as he began putting his name on the U.S. political map years ago was championing “birtherism,” the long-held conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was born outside of the U.S. and hence should never have been elected. He often chastised Obama and demanded the president produce his birth certificate, revving up an anti-Obama base that eventually helped put Trump in the White House.

Evidently, Trump may have been using the so-called birthers only as a means to an end.

His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is also a senior adviser to the president, allegedly told a former editor of the newspaper he once owned that the billionaire real-estate mogul didn’t believe his own “birtherism” claims, and only made them to charge up Republicans because they are “stupid,” GQ reported.

During a discussion on how to cover Trump, the former New York Observer editor, Elizabeth Spiers, claimed she told Kushner that she had serious problems with Trump’s repeated claims that Obama was not born in the U.S., to which Kushner allegedly told her: “He doesn’t really believe it, Elizabeth. He just knows Republicans are stupid and they’ll buy it.”

Spiers told her Kushner anecdote in response to a question from a conservative blogger on Facebook, and then screenshotted the response and put it up on Twitter.

In 1988 Oprah Asked Donald Trump If He’d Ever Run For President Here’s How He Replied

Donald Trump;wasn’t always so sure he wanted to run for president.

Long before The Donald officially kicked off his;polarizing2016run and became;the Republican frontrunner, Oprah asked the business tycoon about his political aspirations on a 1988 episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” ;Trump had originally appeared on the show to promote a new book and discuss his life as a businessman, but the conversation soon turned toward foreign policy and how Trump would take a tougher stance with America’s allies.

“I’d make our allies pay their fair share. We’re a debtor nation; something’s going to happen over the next number of years in this country, because you can’t keep going on losing $200 billion,” he said on “The Oprah Show” back then. “We let Japan come in and dump everything right into our markets… They come over here, they sell their cars, their VCRs. They knock the hell out of our companies. And, hey, I have tremendous respect for the Japanese people. I mean, you can respect somebody that’s beating the hell out of you, but they are beating the hell out of this country. Kuwait, they live like kings and yet, they’re not paying. We make it possible for them to sell their oil. Why aren’t they paying us 25 percent of what they’re making? It’s a joke.”

The rant prompted Oprah to ask the question that people would ask for the next few decades.

Of course, he couldn’t help but hedge.

“I think I’d win,” Trump said. “I’ll tell you what: I wouldn’t go in to lose.”

Also On HuffPost:

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Trumps 10 Most Hilariously Stupid Things He Said In 2019

President Donald Trump has a long history of saying some of the most bizarre things in politics. This year was one for the books as the president flailed, searching for excuses for his July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Here are some of the most hilariously stupid things the president has said this year:

1. Windmills cause ear cancer

If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down 75 percent in value, Trump told Republicans in April. And they say the noise causes cancer. You tell me that one. He then made a whirring noise mimicking a turbine.

2. He wants to buy Greenland

In meetings, at dinners and in passing conversations, Mr. Trump has asked advisers whether the U.S. can acquire Greenland, listened with interest when they discuss its abundant resources and geopolitical importance and, according to two of the people, has asked his White House counsel to look into the idea, the Wall Street Journal reported in August.

Denmark essentially owns it, Trump told reporters in the days that followed. Were very good allies with Denmark. We protect Denmark like we protect large portions of the world. Strategically its interesting.

Trump then got into a fight with Danish leaders and had to cancel a trip hed planned to the country.

3. Trump is the chosen one.

4. Why dont they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.

Im Getting The Word Out: Inside The Feverish Mind Of Donald Trump Two Months After Leaving The White House

I Alone Can Fix It

To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories.

Save Story

To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories.

Seventy days had passed since Donald Trump left Washington against his will. On March 31, 2021, we ventured to Mar-a-Lago, where he still reigned as king of Republican politics. We arrived late that afternoon for our audience with the man who used to be president and were ushered into an ornate sixty-foot-long room that functioned as a kind of lobby leading to the clubs patio. A model of Air Force One painted in Trumps proposed redesigna flat red stripe across the middle, a navy belly, a white top, and a giant American flag on the tailwas proudly displayed on the coffee table facing the entrance. It was a prop disconnected from reality.; Trumps vision never came to be; the fleet now in use by President Biden still bears the iconic baby blue-and-white livery designed by Jacqueline Kennedy.

Trump had invited us to Mar-a-Lago to interview him for this book. He had declined an interview for our first book about his presidency, and when A Very Stable Genius was published in January 2020, attacked us personally and branded our reporting a work of fiction. But Trump was quick to agree to our request this time. He sought to curate history.

But future elections were not front and center in his mind. A past election was. Trump was fixated on his loss in 2020, returning to this wound repeatedly throughout the interview.;

Also Check: How Many Republicans Voted For Obamacare In The Senate

Trump Told A Reporter His Biggest Secret: That He Is A Danger To The American People

Trump is a particularly stupid man who thinks he is very smart. Perhaps this lies at the root of his monumentally dumb decision to grant Bob Woodward 18 interviews

The Inuit are supposed to have dozens of words to describe snow. The Brits have endless ways to talk about rain. Now its time for Americans to delineate all the many ways that Donald Trump is dumb.

If Bob Woodwards new blockbuster teaches us anything new about the character of the 45th president, its that we dont yet have the words to describe the multiple variants of the vacuum inside his head.

Theres the stupidity of arrogance, the stupidity of ignorance and his old friend: the stupidity of blatant duplicity. Theres his homicidal stupidity, his traitorous stupidity, his criminally corrupt stupidity and his plain old infantile stupidity.

Lets start with the top of this taxonomy: the domain of Donalds dumbness. At his core, the former reality TV star is a particularly stupid man who thinks he is very smart. Or as he prefers to call his own character, a very stable genius.

Perhaps, just maybe, this lies at the root of his monumentally dumb decision to grant Woodward 18 interviews, on the record and on tape.

Instead, our very stupid genius vomited up all manner of secrets that collectively prove beyond all reasonable doubt that he represents the greatest single danger to the fate of both the American people and to himself.

Fact Check: Did Trump Say In ’98 Republicans Are Dumb

Donald Trump: I didnt say that. (He did.)

Did Donald Trump tell People magazine in 1998 that if he ever ran for president, hed do it as a Republican because theyre the dumbest group of voters in the country and that he could lie and theyd still eat it up?A:;No, thats a bogus meme.

FULL ANSWER

The meme purports to be a quote from Trump in;People;magazine in 1998 saying, If I were to run, Id run as a Republican. Theyre the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe;anything on Fox News. I could lie and theyd still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.

We were alerted to the meme by a reader, A. Douglas Thomas of Freeport, N.Y., among others, who saw it in his Facebook feed, along with a message from someone who said, I just fact-checked this. Google Donald Trump, People magazine and 1998. This is an actual quote by Trump.

Well save you the effort. It is;not;an actual quote by Trump.

We scoured the;Peoplemagazine archives and found nothing like this quote in 1998 or any other year.

And a public relations representative with;People;told us that the magazine couldnt find anything like that quote in its archives, either.;Peoples Julie Farin said in an email: Peoplelooked into this exhaustively when it first surfaced back in Oct.;We combed through every Trump story in our archive.;We couldnt find anything remotely like this quote and no interview at all in 1998.

There were several stories in the late 1990s about Trumps flirtation with a presidential run.

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Trump Is Right: Republicans Are Stupid

Donald Trump, master of the deal, is right. The Republicans are stupid, not only as politicians but also as political psychologists. He criticized Paul Ryan for bringing up the subject of Medicare reform that the Democrats could use to turn the elderly against the Republicans. Their video of grandma being shoved over the cliff by Republicans is a stark indication of how the Dems will fight to win four more years for Obama.

As the discussions over increasing the debt limit go on, the Democrats are portraying themselves as the more flexible party in the negotiations. They are willing to cut cherished programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, provided Republicans agree to some increases in revenue. They want the Republicans to agree to raise taxes and cut spending on programs that the elderly hold sacred. A perfect recipe for Republican defeat in November 2012. Thursdays meeting was supposed to focus on spending cuts in the two health care programs and on new revenue. And only stupid Republicans would attend such a meeting.

From the very beginning, by focusing on cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, the Republicans have trapped themselves into a no-win situation. Why havent they offered a list of real cuts in federal spending? Who told them that cutting programs that the elderly are dependent on is the way to win votes in 2012?

Here Are The Top 10 Stupidest Things Trump Did As President

We’re tentatively starting to emerge from the four year-long national nightmare of Donald Trump’s presidency, but the reckoning of what the nation endured will take years to really understand. Trump was terrible in so many ways that it’s hard to catalog them all: His sociopathic lack of regard for others. His towering narcissism. His utter ease with lying. His cruelty and sadism. The glee he took in cheating and stomping on anything good and decent. His misogyny and racism. His love of encouraging violence, only equaled by his personal cowardice.

But of all the repulsive character traits in a man so wholly lacking in any redeemable qualities, perhaps the most perplexing to his opponents was Trump’s incredible stupidity. On one hand, it was maddening that a man so painfully dumb, a man who clearly could barely read even on those rare occasions when he deigned to wear glasses still had the low cunning necessary to take over the Republican Party and then the White House.

On the other hand, it was the one aspect of Trump’s personality that kept hope alive. Surely a man so stupid, his opponents believed, will one day blunder so badly he can’t be saved, even by his most powerful sycophants. That has proved to be the case as Trump fumbles his way through a failed coup, unable and unwilling to see that stealing the election from Joe Biden is a lost cause.

He then pointed at his head, and said, “I’m, like, a person who has a good you-know-what.”

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Top 10 Actual Things Donald Trump Said At His 2016 Presidential Campaign Kickoff

Top 10 Actual Things Donald Trump Said At His 2016 Presidential Campaign Announcement

— On Tuesday, real estate mogul-turned reality show star, Donald Trump, became the latest Republican to jump into the 2016 presidential race.

If hes elected in 2016, the GOP hopeful predicated that he would be the most successful president for U.S. jobs that God ever created, used the recent sale of a multi-million dollar apartment he owned to someone from China as an example of his friendly ties with the country, voiced concern that people from the Middle East are probably sneaking into the country through the border, and revealed that rich Islamic terrorists are his competition within the hotel market in Syria.

This is all real, and its trademark Trump. Here are the quotes from Trumps presidential announcement that you will never hear another presidential candidate say — ever.

[mrmichaelchadler]

I Was Ghosting Jobs Back When Ghosting Wasn’t Cool

Who says there’s no such thing as “fake” news?

This goes through my head whenever I read about how the “ghosting” trend (people skipping job interviews, failing to show up when they get hired, or bailing from a new job with no warning) is disrupting recruiting and hiring, because the more I hear about it, the more I’m convinced that ghosting is nothing more than overblown media BS.

I’m not denying that it’s happening, a little, but there have been people ghosting jobs and job interviews for as long as I can remember.

How do I know this? Well, if confession is good for the soul, mine will be better off fessing up to the fact that I ghosted at least three jobs way back in my early college days.

Yes, I was ghosting jobs back when ghosting wasn’t cool.

Does anybody have any hard evidence?

This all came back to me as I read this LinkedIn post that seemed to just discover the ghosting trend (see Candidates Are Ghosting New Employers — Here’s How You Can Avoid This). It grabbed my attention because I found it had the same problem I seem to find in just about EVERY story or blog post trumpeting ghosting as some terrible new workplace trend.

The problem is this: None of these stories seem to have any hard evidence — no data or research or hard numbers — to support the notion that ghosting is causing extreme havoc for recruiters and hiring managers in the American workplace.

What all these stories seem to have in common is that they’re built on anecdotal evidence, second-hand observations, rumor, and hearsay.

For example, the LinkedIn article cites The Washington Post as the source of their information, writing that, “The Washington Post reports a 10% to 20% increase in candidate and employee ghosting over the past year. ‘Applicants blow off interviews,’ the Post reports. ‘New hires turn into no-shows. Workers leave one evening and never return.’”

Ok, that sounds pretty credible … until you dig into The Washington Post story and find that The Post doesn’t cite any hard numbers or data either. Their only evidence to support the notion of increased workplace ghosting comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s December Beige Book — and it’s anecdotal too..

A long time “trend”

To its credit, The Washington Post goes on say that:

National data on economic “ghosting” is lacking. The term, which usually applies to dating, first surfaced in 2016 on Dictionary.com. But companies across the country say silent exits are on the rise.”

This is what I find in every story I read about ghosting — the people mentioned in the media say it’s a big problem, you get a few examples of it happening here and there, but there’s no data to support the contention that ghosting is a big, bad workplace problem.

A USA Today article I wrote about last summer (see Candidates “Ghosting” Job Interviews?Just More Proof of a Bad Candidate Experience) was the first that really tried to dig into the workplace ghosting trend. But even that story merely cited what happened at a few companies and then used that to support their contention that ghosting was a big trend and workplace problem despite having no real data or broader evidence to support the claim.

Some might call this fake news, but I call it sloppy journalism based on thin evidence — and that has been going on for a very long time.

I know this because I ghosted three jobs while in college, although nobody called it ghosting then. We called it “ditching” a job, a term The Washington Post has resurrected in it’s ghosting coverage.

I ghosted before I even knew what it was

This was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I was 18, had moved out of my parents’ house and into an apartment with a friend, and I found myself struggling to pay the rent. So, I churned through three jobs that I “ghosted” in less than a year.

Here are the ugly details:

Job No. 1 was as an overnight cook at a Sambo’s Restaurant. There’s a whole story around what happened to Sambo’s, a 24-hour diner that once rivaled Denny’s. It had more than 1100 units in 47 states before its name became a huge problem in the 1970s. There is a single Sambo’s left today — in Santa Barbara, California.

I had never, ever been a cook when I was hired, and the manager promised me that I would get great on-the-job training and catch on in no time. So, I started on a Friday night and worked the 10 pm to 6 am shift.

Big mistake. I was overwhelmed by the crowds after 2 am when the bars closed, and I simply couldn’t learn fast enough to handle the load. I survived for three nights and never returned when I walked out at the end of my shift on Monday morning. I never got paid, but I didn’t care. And, I had “ghosted” my first employer and didn’t even know it.

Job No. 2 was working in the paint department at The Treasury, a discount chain store owned by JCPenney. I had previously worked in the paint department at a Sears store, so I knew my way around a paint mixer. But, Sears was always pretty busy; The Treasury never seemed to have anybody shopping there.

One week in, I was dying of boredom and the pay wasn’t all that good. I made it through my first shift of Week 2 and decided I just couldn’t take it anymore. I left after that shift and never came back. They mailed me my first, last, and only paycheck a month later. I had ghosted again.

Job No. 3 was short and sweet. I was hired at a Carl’s Jr. franchise in California to train as an assistant manager. I had previously worked as an assistant manager at a McDonald’s, so how much different could this be?

It was another big mistake on my part, because while the McDonald’s I managed always had enough staff, this Carl’s Jr. didn’t. It became clear on Day 1 that this was a job where managers ended up having to do a lot of non-managerial duties because the place was chronically shorthanded. That wasn’t what I had signed up for, so I left after my first shift and never came back. Like with Sambo’s, I never got paid, but again, I didn’t care.

I had “ghosted” all three new jobs, quitting without any notice and without telling anyone. Who knew I was a trendsetter and more than 30 years ahead of the curve? Yes, I was ghosting jobs before anyone knew that ghosting was trendy and cool.

That was my “young and dumb” period, and I got past it pretty quickly. I moved back home, went back to college, and got my life together. An MBA, a long career as an editor, and married life have all followed.

A quirk in a candidate-friendly job market

But here’s my point: I haven’t found anyone who keeps statistics on “ghosting” jobs or job interviews. They didn’t way back in my ghosting days and they don’t seem to now.

Ghosting isn’t a new trend. I’m living proof of that. But until somebody starts tracking the numbers and shows that it’s more than just bad behavior by dumb people like I was way back when, consider it just an odd quirk that gets attention when you have more of a candidate-friendly job market.

It’s happening, but until there’s more hard evidence to prove that the number of people ghosting jobs and job interviews has dramatically increased, consider the big ghosting trend to be nothing more than overblown media BS.

As a veteran ghoster, I ought to know.

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