#in this house we simply post both as part of another hashtag relatable post in the hopes that the two for one bargain

[gibbearish]

so like i want to talk more abt what suicidal means but the problem is "suicidal ideation presents in two general forms, active and passive. the thing most people think of as suicidal is the active version, where the person *actively* desires to be dead and/or is making a plan to get there. the passive form however gets almost no attention in media so many people experiencing it are unaware they are even depressed, much less passively suicidal. some examples: not wanting to experience death but feeling like you wouldn't mind if you didn't wake up tomorrow or just stopped existing; feeling deeply exhausted with just the entire concept of being alive; even feeling like you want to run away, change your name, and start a whole new life; none of these look like suicidal ideation to most people because they don't involve actively doing anything to get from point a to point b, especially the more abstract ones like the start a new life thing - but remember that in order to truly start a whole new life, you have to destroy your current one. it's not suicidal as in wanting to actually DIE die, it's just. wanting something close enough to scratch the itch. but just because you haven't booked the ticket doesn't mean you don't still revisit the 'vacation activities at point b' tab occasionally to daydream, yknow?" is i think very informative and specific, but its also quite long and run on-y so people are v likely to tap out like a third of the way through it, whereas "suicidal doesnt necessarily mean wanting to die" is way shorter and therefore catchier, but is also the kind of nonspecific phrasing that gets you a thousand angry anons about how you said all suicidal people are just pretending they actually want to die or some dumb shit. so it's a fun line to toe

[alwayysmichael]

Michael Jackson and me.

I was a boy in Michael Jackson’s life, and nothing of what he’s being accused of in this documentary happened...

I wanted to write and post this before Leaving Neverland premiered at Sundance last Friday. After all, I had a close relationship with Michael Jackson growing up and nothing of what he continues to be accused of has ever happened to me. I decided to wait because I was curious to see if the film would get any wings considering Wade Robson’s volatile and unsuccessful claims against Michael Jackson in the past. Sure, let him tell his story again. Truth and justice will prevail as they have. Soon after it premiered, I quickly Googled “leaving neverland” to discover news articles stating that the four-hour documentary received a standing ovation. In disbelief, I searched the hashtag on Instagram to see Story footage from the theater and there they were — Wade Robson, James Safechuck and the film’s director Dan Reed — on stage in front of an applauding audience at their feet. I’m not sure if the audience was doing so because they were perceived as survivors making a public appearance, or if the film was actually good in their eyes, or both; but all I could think about was that their strategy, unfortunately, worked.

Raising awareness about child abuse and providing a safe community for others to speak their truth is vital, but using Michael Jackson as a vehicle to do so is simply wrong. In order for any story to be valid, there has to be an element of trust and I do not trust the people associated with this film. Let’s be clear: Michael Jackson showed up. He faced public interviews, he answered difficult-to-stomach questions, he agreed to interrogative documentaries, he withstood a 10-year FBI investigation, and he appeared in an eighteen-month criminal trial until he was acquitted having been found not guilty on all fourteen child molestation and abuse-related accounts. The fact that twelve years of criminal investigations and government legal proceedings can be completely overruled by the media due to a manipulation of the same stories once told before by a select few, especially by those who were initially on the defense, is deeply concerning. Maybe even horrifying.

I haven’t seen the documentary, but it “focuses on two men… who allege they were sexually abused by the pop star Michael Jackson as children” (Wikipedia). Everyone is entitled to his/her/their story and I believe that each story should be told in truth to the best of his/her/their ability, but my issue with Leaving Neverland is the heavy reliance on one side, especially when that one side is comprised of only two people. On top of it all, those two people happen to know each other. So what we have is a product comprised of two acquaintances’ stories who were in Michael’s life as boys that has been glorified in a 236-minute documentary. Remember that the film would mark Robson’s second attempt to tell his story. He told the same, truncated version of his story publicly in 2013 and simultaneously filed suit against the Michael Jackson Estate, which the court later dismissed. This was eight years after he testified twice under oath explicitly stating that Michael did nothing wrong during a criminal trial in which the jury delivered a verdict of not guilty. It’s clear that this film’s intention is to position Michael as a child predator, but I find that the entire Leaving Neverland saga is really, in turn, a predation on a man of power and wealth now almost 10 years dead and thereby defenseless.

I was part of Michael’s life from the day I was born in 1987 until 2001. The last time I was literally close to him was backstage at the Staples Center when his casket wheeled past me. I knew him well because my mother, Janet Zeitoun, his sole hairstylist during the time, knew him even better. One could say that they might as well have been siblings. In fact, my mother was one of the few non-family members invited to the private memorial service at the cemetery hours before the public one in Downtown LA. Michael felt so comfortable with my mother because she made him laugh unlike anyone else, let alone the fact that she’s incredible at her craft. Michael even said in writing that she’s the “Michelangelo of hair.”

From the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, my mother has been around the globe with Michael. She’s been by his side doing his hair on sets, in dressing rooms, backstage at his concerts, at his home, on planes, in hotel rooms, in cars, and yes, even at Neverland. When my mom was pregnant with me in ‘86, Michael told her that she’d be having a boy; and on the day of my birth, Michael sent a limo to our home filled with gifts. And from then on, my single, hard-working mother who wanted to spend as much time with me as she could often brought me to work with her. So I grew up on the sets of Michael’s music videos, I played with my toys on the floor of his dressing rooms, and he sometimes came over to our house to get his hair done. As I got a bit older and could walk on my own two feet, I became the boy responsible for making sure Michael got candy in between some of his concert rehearsal sets. Michael would make everyone stop and patiently wait for me to wobble my way on stage to him. I even remember singing “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” to him in his trailer (so embarrassing!) but he gave me his undivided attention and smiled. I went to Neverland, several times of which Michael was there and he gave us the full tour of his home. I remember my favorite golf cart to get around had a Peter Pan emblem on it. I remember his movie theater concession stand being filled with candy that you could go behind the counter and take to watch whatever movie you wanted. I remember riding the big steam engine train that would take you from one end of the ranch to the other. I remember a big pot-bellied pig named Petunia and that I could name a newborn deer and rabbit. I chose Cuddie and Thumper, respectively; original, I know, but Michael loved the names.

Unlike Robson or Safechuck, I wasn’t in the public eye with Michael. The only sort of public thing that happened was him publishing a photo of us in the centerfold of his 1995 tour book. Fourteen years later, the caretaker of his children recognized me backstage at the Staples Center during his memorial service and told me that the photograph was one of Michael’s favorites, and at the time in 2009 was still framed on his grand piano in Neverland.I remember leaving Neverland a happy kid who couldn’t wait to go back. 

I remember telling my mom that I wanted to have another birthday party there or that I wanted to hang out with Michael again at the ranch. The bulk of my experience with Michael was during the 90s right when the FBI investigation began on account of child molestation allegations. Knowing that this was happening and that these charges were set against him, I don’t think my protective and well-aware mother would’ve allowed me to continue hanging around Michael or head up to Neverland had she not trusted him.

I firmly believe Michael did no wrong. You don’t have to take my word for it, though; know that his truth was proven in a court of law. The stories being presented in Leaving Neverland are incredibly one-sided. This film is merely the Wade Robson & James Safechuck Story because I, too, remember leaving Neverland, as does my mother, and as do many people in his life who’d be glad to have a say in a film so generically titled; now wrongfully entitled to depict Michael’s life and his misunderstood relationship with children. Any credible director of a documentary seeking truth on the matter would do his/her/their due diligence and present the full story from a carefully chosen and meaningful variety of sources. With four hours of film time to spare, I’m sure there could have been room. This is why I’m deeply disappointed in HBO and Channel 4 UK for picking it up with plans to air it later this spring. The networks snagged a falsity and will be responsible for disseminating a poorly researched film based on the highly skewed opinions of a select few that many of its subscribers will conclude as true.

Leaving Neverland is connecting because Robson and Safechuck’s well-acted stories are similar to those of true survivors watching the film. It’s a smart, yet corrupt way to capitalize on an entire community’s vulnerabilities. It’s also connecting because their stories are bolstered with a compelling medium to tell them as well as an accredited establishment like Sundance to premiere it. It’s riding the wave of an important #MeToo and #TimesUp movement, and it poorly validates a shortsighted equation that many people think they already have the answer to: Michael Jackson plus always being around children must equal child molester. The result? A byproduct of lies smeared with a thin layer of credibility intended to enrage the general media and side with self-proclaimed victims. And because the people behind these forms of media have a following (or not), perhaps they’re employed by some “greater” masthead and their information is muffled with journalists who actually seek the truth, the general population slowly becomes convinced, valuing information by ease of access which has really been served to them by algorithms designed to showcase what individuals only want to see. This is where destruction escalates. This is where the snowball gains its mass. This is why I’m stepping in with my story now.

I urge you to make it your undying responsibility to seek truth and acknowledge all sides in your consumption of how Michael is being depicted in this film. The capitalization of circumstance, divisive use of content and manipulation of media — all combined with rising false senses of entitlement — can quickly nullify a verdict and forever challenge truth to favor the other. This is the loophole with our digital ecosystem that actually determines one’s fate and this is the precise mechanism Leaving Neverland is using, especially when money is at stake. It will ultimately destroy his family, defame his legacy and eradicate his artistry. If you think this little loophole won’t take it that far, well, for starters: it’s already killed Michael Jackson.

Michael signed a letter to me on Neverland letterhead once. It read: “from your protective and older brother, Michael Jackson.” Now I find it my turn to protect him by telling my story because I solemnly swear that this kind-hearted, genius-of-a-man is innocent. I probably would have known otherwise. -  Talun Zeitoun

[alessandriana]

Internet trolls don’t troll. Not the professionals at least. Professional trolls don’t go on social media to antagonize liberals or belittle conservatives. They are not narrow minded, drunk or angry. They don’t lack basic English language skills. They certainly aren’t ��somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,” as the president once put it. Your stereotypical trolls do exist on social media, but the amateurs aren’t a threat to Western democracy.

Professional trolls, on the other hand, are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them — and take them seriously.

On August 22, 2019, @IamTyraJackson received almost 290,000 likes on Twitter for a single tweet. Put in perspective, the typical tweet President Trump sends to his 67 million followers gets about 100,000 likes. That viral tweet by @IamTyraJackson was innocent: an uplifting pair of images of former pro football player Warrick Dunn and a description of his inspiring charity work building houses for single mothers. For an anonymous account that had only existed for only a few months, “Tyra” knew her audience well. Warrick’s former coach, Tony Dungy, retweeted it, as did the rapper and producer Chuck D. Hundreds of thousands of real users viewed Tyra’s tweet and connected with its message. For “Tyra,” however, inspiring messages like this were a tool for a very different purpose.

The purpose of the Tyra account, we believe, was not to spread heartwarming messages to Americans. Rather, the tweet about Warrick Dunn was really a Trojan horse to gain followers in a larger plan by a foreign adversary. We think this because we believe @IamTyraJackson was an account operated by the successors to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA). Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted the IRA for waging a massive information war during the 2016 U.S. election. Since then, the IRA seems to have been subsumed into Russia’s Federal News Agency, but its work continues. In the case of @IamTyraJackson, the IRA’s goal was two-fold: Grow an audience in part through heartwarming, inspiring messages, and use that following to spread messages promoting division, distrust, and doubt.

We’ve spent the past two years studying online disinformation and building a deep understanding of Russia’s strategy, tactics, and impact. Working from data Twitter has publicly released, we’ve read Russian tweets until our eyes bled. Looking at a range of behavioral signals, we have begun to develop procedures to identify disinformation campaigns and have worked with Twitter to suspend accounts. In the process we’ve shared what we’ve learned with people making a difference, both in and out of government. We have experienced a range of emotions studying what the IRA has produced, from disgust at their overt racism to amusement at their sometimes self-reflective humor. Mostly, however, we’ve been impressed.

Professional trolls are good at their job. They have studied us. They understand how to harness our biases (and hashtags) for their own purposes. They know what pressure points to push and how best to drive us to distrust our neighbors. The professionals know you catch more flies with honey. They don’t go to social media looking for a fight; they go looking for new best friends. And they have found them.

Disinformation operations aren’t typically fake news or outright lies. Disinformation is most often simply spin. Spin is hard to spot and easy to believe, especially if you are already inclined to do so. While the rest of the world learned how to conduct a modern disinformation campaign from the Russians, it is from the world of public relations and advertising that the IRA learned their craft. To appreciate the influence and potential of Russian disinformation, we need to view them less as Boris and Natasha and more like Don Draper.

As good marketers, professional trolls manipulate our emotions subtly. In fall 2018, for example, a Russian account we identified called @PoliteMelanie re-crafted an old urban legend, tweeting: “My cousin is studying sociology in university. Last week she and her classmates polled over 1,000 conservative Christians. ‘What would you do if you discovered that your child was a homo sapiens?’ 55% said they would disown them and force them to leave their home.” This tweet, which suggested conservative Christians are not only homophobic but also ignorant, was subtle enough to not feel overtly hateful, but was also aimed directly at multiple cultural stress points, driving a wedge at the point where religiosity and ideology meet. The tweet was also wildly successful, receiving more than 90,000 retweets and nearly 300,000 likes.

This tweet didn’t seek to anger conservative Christians or to provoke Trump supporters. She wasn’t even talking to them. Melanie’s 20,000 followers, painstakingly built, weren’t from #MAGA America (Russia has other accounts targeting them). Rather, Melanie’s audience was made up of educated, urban, left-wing Americans harboring a touch of self-righteousness. She wasn’t selling her audience a candidate or a position — she was selling an emotion. Melanie was selling disgust. The Russians know that, in political warfare, disgust is a more powerful tool than anger. Anger drives people to the polls; disgust drives countries apart.

Accounts like @IamTyraJackson have continued @PoliteMelanie’s work. Professional disinformation isn’t spread by the account you disagree with — quite the opposite. Effective disinformation is embedded in an account you agree with. The professionals don’t push you away, they pull you toward them. While tweeting uplifting messages about Warrick Dunn’s real-life charity work, Tyra, and several accounts we associated with her, also distributed messages consistent with past Russian disinformation. Importantly, they highlighted issues of race and gender inequality. A tweet about Brock Turner’s Stanford rape case received 15,000 likes. Another about police targeting black citizens in Las Vegas was liked more than 100,000 times. Here is what makes disinformation so difficult to discuss: while these tweets point to valid issues of concern — issues that have been central to important social movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo — they are framed to serve Russia’s interests in undermining Americans’ trust in our institutions.

These accounts also harness the goodwill they’ve built by engaging in these communities for specific political ends. Consistent with past Russian activity, they attacked moderate politicians as a method of bolstering more polarizing candidates. Recently, Vice President Biden has been the most frequent target of this strategy, as seen in dozens of tweets such as, “Joe Biden is damaging Obama’s legacy with his racism and stupidity!” and “Joe Biden doesn’t deserve our votes!”

The quality of Russia’s work has been honed over several years and millions of social media posts. They have appeared on Instagram, Stitcher, Reddit, Google+, Tumblr, Medium, Vine, Meetup, and even Pokémon Go, demonstrating not only a nihilistic creativity, but also a ruthless efficiency in volume of production. The IRA has been called a “troll farm,” but they are undoubtedly a factory.

While persona like Melanie and Tyra were important to Russian efforts, they were ultimately just tools, interchangeable parts constructed for a specific audience. When shut down, they were quickly replaced by other free-to-create, anonymous accounts. The factory doesn’t stop. They attack issues from both sides, attempting to drive mainstream viewpoints in polar and extreme directions.

In a free society, we must accept that bad actors will try to take advantage of our openness. But we need to learn to question our own and others’ biases on social media. We need to teach — to individuals of all ages — that we shouldn’t simply believe or repost anonymous users because they used the same hashtag we did, and neither should we accuse them of being a Russian bot simply because we disagree with their perspective. We need to teach digital civility. It will not only weaken foreign efforts, but it will also help us better engage online with our neighbors, especially the ones we disagree with.

Russian disinformation is not just about President Trump or the 2016 presidential election. Did they work to get Trump elected? Yes, diligently. Our research has shown how Russia strategically employed social media to build support on the right for Trump and lower voter turnout on the left for Clinton. But the IRA was not created to collude with the Trump campaign. They existed well before Trump rode down that escalator and announced his candidacy, and we assume they will exist in some form well after he is gone. Russia’s goals are to further widen existing divisions in the American public and decrease our faith and trust in institutions that help maintain a strong democracy. If we focus only on the past or future, we will not be prepared for the present. It’s not about election 2016 or 2020.

The IRA generated more social media content in the year following the 2016 election than the year before it. They also moved their office into a bigger building with room to expand. Their work was never just about elections. Rather, the IRA encourages us to vilify our neighbor and amplify our differences because, if we grow incapable of compromising, there can be no meaningful democracy. Russia has dug in for a long campaign. So far, we’re helping them win.

[michaelconlon-blog1]

Interview with a Change Maker

Michael Conlon

Interview with a Change Maker

           Robert Mostyn is a director for a non-profit organization ROC Game Dev. This organization is dedicated to fostering a community of game creators in Rochester, New York. Their mission is to provide a platform for game creators at beginner, amateur, and professional levels to learn, share and collaborate in all aspects of building games. I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to interview Robert and talk to him about this organization, including the inspiration for making it, the everyday life of working as a part of the organization, and how they use social media to grow their organization, and much more. There is a lot of time and effort that goes into making and maintaining and organization like this one, and I was able to learn everything about it.

           I was able to contact Rob via email, and we were able to set up and interview over discord, an online source that allows people to communicate by either talking or texting. For every question I asked he gave me a well thought out response and used countless examples that related to each question, making it easier to understand his message that he was sending each question. The first question I asked him was how he got involved with his work, and he told me that when he was growing up, he was into making music as well as inde games, which are independent video games, and that is what grew his passion for video game creating. He started to meet with small groups where they would talk about their games, and eventually, it grew in to an organization. They made it a non-profit organization when they were planning a community headquarters, because they realized that this was the best way to form the organization. I then asked him what was the first action or movement that got him involved as an organizer. He told me how it all started out as a meetup through Facebook, where him and other people would talk about games, which eventually led to them meeting at a coffee house every couple of weeks, where they would talk about the games they were creating and help each other out on their games. When they began starting the organization, their first action, as stated earlier, was the forming of community headquarters. Being a non-profit organization, they were given some help money-wise to pay rent for the headquarters, and they received donations for their furniture, so they could get up and running. He also told me that they were set on one location, but another location actually reached out to them, and they liked how they were wanted in the other location, so they decided settle there instead. Now that they have their headquarters, the hold monthly events called the “Rochester Game Festival”, where people from Rochester come and show off their games, as well as other non-game creators come to test out games that were made, and give their honest opinion on them. The goal of these festivals is to help these game developers learn how to improve their game, and to also get their game recognized by the Rochester community, as well as to get other people to get a passion for video games, whether is developing or just simply playing. At their last event, they had 56 game developers attend, as well as about 1,000 people who came and tested out the games. Moving into the headquarters, as well as raising money for furniture was their first action as an organization, and these monthly events are one of their movements that they have.

After learning about the organization and what they do, I then asked him if his work was important to him personally, and he began telling me how as a kid he was a big video game fan, and he also truly enjoyed making video games, and he also loves seeing what his friends who also create video games make. Members of the organization have the same mind set, they all support each other in their creations, which shows how passionate they are as a group. They want each other to succeed. I asked him about some issues that comes with running the organization, and how told me how it’s hard to navigate planning certain events, and how it can be difficult for people around them to understand exactly what their organization is about. He told me a story about how one time there was a man that worked on a different floor in their building, who is very nice but doesn’t seem to understand what they are doing. He once asked about how the organization works when they just sit there and play video games all day, he didn’t understand the reasoning of the organization, which is game developing and trying to help game creators in the area get their games out there, and also try and make people like video games. Just getting people to understand what they do can be challenging. For him, it can be a lot to stay focused, considering that he works a full-time job, and running this organization is like working two full time jobs, so it can get difficult. But what keeps him motivated is hearing people tell him how much they appreciate what he is doing. He also likes seeing developers succeed around him at the festivals, when he sees people playing the games that his friends make, he takes pride in being part of their success. He also told me how it’s hard when planning certain things, because only a few people are responsible for it. He told me that they are developing a strategic plan so that certain board members are assigned different responsibilities, so everyone has one job that they have to work on which makes it easier for everyone when planning upcoming events. An example is having one person given the task of developing donation campaigns. Since this is still a very small campaign, they need to work on more people getting involved. There is a lot of planning and working that goes into setting up these events.

As we all know, Social Media has been taking over the world over the last few years. Most people learn their information over some type of social media, so I asked Robert how he uses social media in his work. He told me that he uses social media on a regular basis to announce events, as well as using specific hashtags that are made specifically for the organization, so that people can find them through the hashtag. For communication purposes, they mainly use discord, mentioned earlier. These discord servers can be joined by anyone who wants to talk about the organization and what is coming up, how they can help, and what they need to know. They post most of their photos on Instagram, which is one of their main platforms on social media, as well as twitter. They stay away from Facebook, because they find most of the people that are interested in their organization are on either twitter or Instagram. He also mentioned that they would like to livestream on their social media platforms, so that people that can’t attend have some why of feeling like they are there, and they just walk around the event, talking to different people about what is going on around them. They hope that people can feel connected to their event, and they also hope that people will see the livestream, and use that as motivation to attend the next event. I then asked how he splits his time on social media through his professional and personal account. He told me it was a mixture, and he finds himself using his personal account to promote business, as well of posting personal posts obviously, which includes memes, music, and personal interests. He also gained some skill through past community organizations he has been involved with, he didn’t run any of them but he helped out as much as he could. He told me that he would book concerts for music, and he did some poster design for the organizations and he would also do some social media work. He learned throughout these experiences how to approach people, as well as manage their expectations. He also learned a skill to be able to bring people together, recognizing when to step aside and have people engage with each other without him having to be there. It took him a while to figure it all out, but he did, and all that past experience was useful now that he’s starting to run his own organization. I asked him how he sees social media tying into his work in the future, and he told me that he sees it being used the same, and he thinks that he would focus more on campaigns, and also drift campaigns, which is to plan out all social media posts for the month, and fill it up over time. Being able to plan your posts ahead of time and knowing exactly what lies ahead will be beneficial for both himself and the organization. There would be no days where he has to worry about what to post, and he will be able to use that time planning elsewhere that will help the organization in a different aspect other than social media. He also mentioned that he wants to focus on live streaming more, as he feels that that haven’t quite taken advantage of it right now, and he sees himself using it more in the future. He also loves using new social media platforms, and he will be trying to take advantage of all new platforms in the future to grow his organization. He sees himself not only continuing to use social media in the future, but growing his platform through it as much as he can.

I learned a lot from interviewing Robert. I gained lots of interest in his organization, and I was able to tell how passionate he was about it. He puts so much time and effort into his work. He likes seeing others thrive, which shows a lot about his character. His main goal is to help people in developing their own games, and so far, he is doing a great job at it, and it’s only the beginning for them. I know that there is a bright future ahead of Robert and everyone who is involved with ROC game Dev.

Works Cited

“Home.” Roc Game Dev, rocgamedev.com/.

[noramoya]

I WAS A BOY IN MICHAEL JACKSON’S LIFE AND NOTHING HAPPENED...

“I wanted to write and post this before Leaving Neverland premiered at Sundance last Friday. After all, I had a close relationship with Michael Jackson growing up and nothing of what he continues to be accused of has ever happened to me. I decided to wait because I was curious to see if the film would get any wings considering Wade Robson’s volatile and unsuccessful claims against Michael Jackson in the past. Sure, let him tell his story again. Truth and justice will prevail as they have. Soon after it premiered, I quickly Googled “leaving neverland” to discover news articles stating that the four-hour documentary received a standing ovation. In disbelief, I searched the hashtag on Instagram to see Story footage from the theater and there they were — Wade Robson, James Safechuck and the film’s director Dan Reed — on stage in front of an applauding audience at their feet. I’m not sure if the audience was doing so because they were perceived as survivors making a public appearance, or if the film was actually good in their eyes, or both; but all I could think about was that their strategy, unfortunately, worked.

Raising awareness about child abuse and providing a safe community for others to speak their truth is vital, but using Michael Jackson as a vehicle to do so is simply wrong. In order for any story to be valid, there has to be an element of trust and I do not trust the people associated with this film. Let’s be clear: Michael Jackson showed up. He faced public interviews, he answered difficult-to-stomach questions, he agreed to interrogative documentaries, he withstood a 10-year FBI investigation, and he appeared in an eighteen-month criminal trial until he was acquitted having been found not guilty on all fourteen child molestation and abuse-related accounts. The fact that twelve years of criminal investigations and government legal proceedings can be completely overruled by the media due to a manipulation of the same stories once told before by a select few, especially by those who were initially on the defense, is deeply concerning. Maybe even horrifying.

I haven’t seen the documentary, but it “focuses on two men… who allege they were sexually abused by the pop star Michael Jackson as children” (Wikipedia). Everyone is entitled to his/her/their story and I believe that each story should be told in truth to the best of his/her/their ability, but my issue with Leaving Neverland is the heavy reliance on one side, especially when that one side is comprised of only two people. On top of it all, those two people happen to know each other. So what we have is a product comprised of two acquaintances’ stories who were in Michael’s life as boys that has been glorified in a 236-minute documentary. Remember that the film would mark Robson’s second attempt to tell his story. He told the same, truncated version of his story publicly in 2013 and simultaneously filed suit against the Michael Jackson Estate, which the court later dismissed. This was eight years after he testified twice under oath explicitly stating that Michael did nothing wrong during a criminal trial in which the jury delivered a verdict of not guilty. It’s clear that this film’s intention is to position Michael as a child predator, but I find that the entire Leaving Neverland saga is really, in turn, a predation on a man of power and wealth now almost 10 years dead and thereby defenseless.

I was part of Michael’s life from the day I was born in 1987 until 2001. The last time I was literally close to him was backstage at the Staples Center when his casket wheeled past me. I knew him well because my mother, Janet Zeitoun, his sole hairstylist during the time, knew him even better. One could say that they might as well have been siblings. In fact, my mother was one of the few non-family members invited to the private memorial service at the cemetery hours before the public one in Downtown LA. Michael felt so comfortable with my mother because she made him laugh unlike anyone else, let alone the fact that she’s incredible at her craft. Michael even said in writing that she’s the “Michelangelo of hair.”

From the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, my mother has been around the globe with Michael. She’s been by his side doing his hair on sets, in dressing rooms, backstage at his concerts, at his home, on planes, in hotel rooms, in cars, and yes, even at Neverland. When my mom was pregnant with me in ‘86, Michael told her that she’d be having a boy; and on the day of my birth, Michael sent a limo to our home filled with gifts. And from then on, my single, hard-working mother who wanted to spend as much time with me as she could often brought me to work with her. So I grew up on the sets of Michael’s music videos, I played with my toys on the floor of his dressing rooms, and he sometimes came over to our house to get his hair done. As I got a bit older and could walk on my own two feet, I became the boy responsible for making sure Michael got candy in between some of his concert rehearsal sets. Michael would make everyone stop and patiently wait for me to wobble my way on stage to him. I even remember singing “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” to him in his trailer (so embarrassing!)but he gave me his undivided attention and smiled. I went to Neverland, several times of which Michael was there and he gave us the full tour of his home. I remember my favorite golf cart to get around had a Peter Pan emblem on it.

I remember his movie theater concession stand being filled with candy that you could go behind the counter and take to watch whatever movie you wanted. I remember riding the big steam engine train that would take you from one end of the ranch to the other. I remember a big pot-bellied pig named Petunia and that I could name a newborn deer and rabbit. I chose Cuddie and Thumper, respectively; original, I know, but Michael loved the names.

Unlike Robson or Safechuck, I wasn’t in the public eye with Michael. The only sort of public thing that happened was him publishing a photo of us in the centerfold of his 1995 tour book. Fourteen years later, the caretaker of his children recognized me backstage at the Staples Center during his memorial service and told me that the photo was one of Michael’s favorites, and at the time in 2009 was still framed on his grand piano in Neverland.

I remember leaving Neverland a happy kid who couldn’t wait to go back. I remember telling my mom that I wanted to have another birthday party there or that I wanted to hang out with Michael again at the ranch. The bulk of my experience with Michael was during the 90s right when the FBI investigation began on account of child molestation allegations. Knowing that this was happening and that these charges were set against him, I don’t think my protective and well-aware mother would’ve allowed me to continue hanging around Michael or head up to Neverland had she not trusted him.

I firmly believe Michael did no wrong. You don’t have to take my word for it, though; know that his truth was proven in a court of law. The stories being presented in Leaving Neverland are incredibly one-sided. This film is merely the Wade Robson & James Safechuck Story because I, too, remember leaving Neverland, as does my mother, and as do many people in his life who’d be glad to have a say in a film so generically titled; now wrongfully entitled to depict Michael’s life and his misunderstood relationship with children. Any credible director of a documentary seeking truth on the matter would do his/her/their due diligence and present the full story from a carefully chosen and meaningful variety of sources. With four hours of film time to spare, I’m sure there could have been room. This is why I’m deeply disappointed in HBO and Channel 4 UK for picking it up with plans to air it later this spring. The networks snagged a falsity and will be responsible for disseminating a poorly researched film based on the highly skewed opinions of a select few that many of its subscribers will conclude as true.

Leaving Neverland is connecting because Robson and Safechuck’s well-acted stories are similar to those of true survivors watching the film. It’s a smart, yet corrupt way to capitalize on an entire community’s vulnerabilities. It’s also connecting because their stories are bolstered with a compelling medium to tell them as well as an accredited establishment like Sundance to premiere it. It’s riding the wave of an important #MeToo and #TimesUp movement, and it poorly validates a shortsighted equation that many people think they already have the answer to: Michael Jackson plus always being around children must equal child molester. The result? A byproduct of lies smeared with a thin layer of credibility intended to enrage the general media and side with self-proclaimed victims. And because the people behind these forms of media have a following (or not), perhaps they’re employed by some “greater” masthead and their information is muffled with journalists who actually the seek truth, the general population slowly becomes convinced, valuing information by ease of access which has really been served to them by algorithms designed to showcase what individuals only want to see. This is where destruction escalates. This is where the snowball gains its mass. This is why I’m stepping in with my story now.

I urge you to make it your undying responsibility to seek truth and acknowledge all sides in your consumption of how Michael is being depicted in this film. The capitalization of circumstance, divisive use of content and manipulation of media — all combined with rising false senses of entitlement — can quickly nullify a verdict and forever challenge truth to favor the other. This is the loophole with our digital ecosystem that actually determines one’s fate and this is the precise mechanism Leaving Neverland is using, especially when money is at stake. It will ultimately destroy his family, defame his legacy and eradicate his artistry. If you think this little loophole won’t take it that far, well, for starters: it’s already killed Michael Jackson.

Michael signed a letter to me on Neverland letterhead once. It read: “from your protective and older brother, Michael Jackson.” Now I find it my turn to protect him by telling my story because I solemnly swear that this kind-hearted, genius-of-a-man is innocent. I probably would have known otherwise.”

— TALUN ZEITOUN, JANET ZEITOUN’S SON , MJ’S HAIRSTYLIST ...

[bountyofbeads]

That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It

Here’s what Russia’s 2020 disinformation operations look like, according to two experts on social media and propaganda.

By DARREN Linvill & PATRICK Warren |

Published November 27, 2019 | Rolling Stone | Posted November 27, 2019 |

Internet trolls don’t troll. Not the professionals at least. Professional trolls don’t go on social media to antagonize liberals or belittle conservatives. They are not narrow minded, drunk or angry. They don’t lack basic English language skills. They certainly aren’t “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,” as the president once put it. Your stereotypical trolls do exist on social media, but the amateurs aren’t a threat to Western democracy.

Professional trolls, on the other hand, are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them — and take them seriously.

On August 22, 2019, @IamTyraJackson received almost 290,000 likes on Twitter for a single tweet. Put in perspective, the typical tweet President Trump sends to his 67 million followers gets about 100,000 likes. That viral tweet by @IamTyraJackson was innocent: an uplifting pair of images of former pro football player Warrick Dunn and a description of his inspiring charity work building houses for single mothers. For an anonymous account that had only existed for only a few months, “Tyra” knew her audience well. Warrick’s former coach, Tony Dungy, retweeted it, as did the rapper and producer Chuck D. Hundreds of thousands of real users viewed Tyra’s tweet and connected with its message. For “Tyra,” however, inspiring messages like this were a tool for a very different purpose.

The purpose of the Tyra account, we believe, was not to spread heartwarming messages to Americans. Rather, the tweet about Warrick Dunn was really a Trojan horse to gain followers in a larger plan by a foreign adversary. We think this because we believe @IamTyraJackson was an account operated by the successors to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA). Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted the IRA for waging a massive information war during the 2016 U.S. election. Since then, the IRA seems to have been subsumed into Russia’s Federal News Agency, but its work continues. In the case of @IamTyraJackson, the IRA’s goal was two-fold: Grow an audience in part through heartwarming, inspiring messages, and use that following to spread messages promoting division, distrust, and doubt.

We’ve spent the past two years studying online disinformation and building a deep understanding of Russia’s strategy, tactics, and impact. Working from data Twitter has publicly released, we’ve read Russian tweets until our eyes bled. Looking at a range of behavioral signals, we have begun to develop procedures to identify disinformation campaigns and have worked with Twitter to suspend accounts. In the process we’ve shared what we’ve learned with people making a difference, both in and out of government. We have experienced a range of emotions studying what the IRA has produced, from disgust at their overt racism to amusement at their sometimes self-reflective humor. Mostly, however, we’ve been impressed.

Professional trolls are good at their job. They have studied us. They understand how to harness our biases (and hashtags) for their own purposes. They know what pressure points to push and how best to drive us to distrust our neighbors. The professionals know you catch more flies with honey. They don’t go to social media looking for a fight; they go looking for new best friends. And they have found them.

Disinformation operations aren’t typically fake news or outright lies. Disinformation is most often simply spin. Spin is hard to spot and easy to believe, especially if you are already inclined to do so. While the rest of the world learned how to conduct a modern disinformation campaign from the Russians, it is from the world of public relations and advertising that the IRA learned their craft. To appreciate the influence and potential of Russian disinformation, we need to view them less as Boris and Natasha and more like Don Draper.

As good marketers, professional trolls manipulate our emotions subtly. In fall 2018, for example, a Russian account we identified called @PoliteMelanie re-crafted an old urban legend, tweeting: “My cousin is studying sociology in university. Last week she and her classmates polled over 1,000 conservative Christians. ‘What would you do if you discovered that your child was a homo sapiens?’ 55% said they would disown them and force them to leave their home.” This tweet, which suggested conservative Christians are not only homophobic but also ignorant, was subtle enough to not feel overtly hateful, but was also aimed directly at multiple cultural stress points, driving a wedge at the point where religiosity and ideology meet. The tweet was also wildly successful, receiving more than 90,000 retweets and nearly 300,000 likes.

This tweet didn’t seek to anger conservative Christians or to provoke Trump supporters. She wasn’t even talking to them. Melanie’s 20,000 followers, painstakingly built, weren’t from #MAGA America (Russia has other accounts targeting them). Rather, Melanie’s audience was made up of educated, urban, left-wing Americans harboring a touch of self-righteousness. She wasn’t selling her audience a candidate or a position — she was selling an emotion. Melanie was selling disgust. The Russians know that, in political warfare, disgust is a more powerful tool than anger. Anger drives people to the polls; disgust drives countries apart.

Accounts like @IamTyraJackson have continued @PoliteMelanie’s work. Professional disinformation isn’t spread by the account you disagree with — quite the opposite. Effective disinformation is embedded in an account you agree with. The professionals don’t push you away, they pull you toward them. While tweeting uplifting messages about Warrick Dunn’s real-life charity work, Tyra, and several accounts we associated with her, also distributed messages consistent with past Russian disinformation. Importantly, they highlighted issues of race and gender inequality. A tweet about Brock Turner’s Stanford rape case received 15,000 likes. Another about police targeting black citizens in Las Vegas was liked more than 100,000 times. Here is what makes disinformation so difficult to discuss: while these tweets point to valid issues of concern — issues that have been central to important social movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo — they are framed to serve Russia’s interests in undermining Americans’ trust in our institutions.

These accounts also harness the goodwill they’ve built by engaging in these communities for specific political ends. Consistent with past Russian activity, they attacked moderate politicians as a method of bolstering more polarizing candidates. Recently, Vice President Biden has been the most frequent target of this strategy, as seen in dozens of tweets such as, “Joe Biden is damaging Obama’s legacy with his racism and stupidity!” and “Joe Biden doesn’t deserve our votes!”

The quality of Russia’s work has been honed over several years and millions of social media posts. They have appeared on Instagram, Stitcher, Reddit, Google+, Tumblr, Medium, Vine, Meetup, and even Pokémon Go, demonstrating not only a nihilistic creativity, but also a ruthless efficiency in volume of production. The IRA has been called a “troll farm,” but they are undoubtedly a factory.

While persona like Melanie and Tyra were important to Russian efforts, they were ultimately just tools, interchangeable parts constructed for a specific audience. When shut down, they were quickly replaced by other free-to-create, anonymous accounts. The factory doesn’t stop. They attack issues from both sides, attempting to drive mainstream viewpoints in polar and extreme directions.

In a free society, we must accept that bad actors will try to take advantage of our openness. But we need to learn to question our own and others’ biases on social media. We need to teach — to individuals of all ages — that we shouldn’t simply believe or repost anonymous users because they used the same hashtag we did, and neither should we accuse them of being a Russian bot simply because we disagree with their perspective. We need to teach digital civility. It will not only weaken foreign efforts, but it will also help us better engage online with our neighbors, especially the ones we disagree with.

Russian disinformation is not just about President Trump or the 2016 presidential election. Did they work to get Trump elected? Yes, diligently. Our research has shown how Russia strategically employed social media to build support on the right for Trump and lower voter turnout on the left for Clinton. But the IRA was not created to collude with the Trump campaign. They existed well before Trump rode down that escalator and announced his candidacy, and we assume they will exist in some form well after he is gone. Russia’s goals are to further widen existing divisions in the American public and decrease our faith and trust in institutions that help maintain a strong democracy. If we focus only on the past or future, we will not be prepared for the present. It’s not about election 2016 or 2020.

The IRA generated more social media content in the year following the 2016 election than the year before it. They also moved their office into a bigger building with room to expand. Their work was never just about elections. Rather, the IRA encourages us to vilify our neighbor and amplify our differences because, if we grow incapable of compromising, there can be no meaningful democracy. Russia has dug in for a long campaign. So far, we’re helping them win.

______

Darren Linvill is an associate professor of communication at Clemson. His work explores state-affiliated disinformation campaigns and the strategies and tactics employed on social media. Patrick Warren is an associate professor of economics at Clemson. Dr. Warren’s research focuses on the operation of organizations in the economy such as for-profit and non-profit firms, bureaucracies, political parties, armies, and propaganda bureaus.

[script101]

The Doctor Falls/Credo in unum Librium: The Script (or "Think but this")

O.K., TV Show. You win. :-D

You gave me both emotional beats I wanted but didn’t think I’d get in a million years (spoilers after the jump), and you explicitly compared the abomination currently living in Madam President Hillary Clinton’s House to sewage.

In return, I officially forgive you for “Lie of the Land”.

We ARE clearly intended to remember that in that dreadful episode Bill was able to resist the lies. So I will remember ONLY that very basic premise and I’ll throw the specifics of that episode (which I found repulsive both on a personal level and on a dramatic level) in the garbage where they belong.

All is mended.

I had written a quick idea on a way to get to the emotional beats I wanted to see in the finale. I also had a lot of still-unanswered questions, but personally, I like Sci-Fi Joss Whedon style: if given the choice between a plot twist and a pile of answers or a single believable emotional moment, go with the believable emotional moment (loosely paraphrased from his comments in a documentary titled “Showrunners”). If the characters ring true, that’s more important to me then checking off every single question box.

1.I’d hoped that the first viewing would be about Bill. 2.I wanted the second viewing to be about a different character.

I needed Bill to survive and move on and AWAY from The Doctor. 2.If the above happened, I wanted the second viewing to allow me to focus on the tragedy of Missy.

~~~~~~~~

Just Plain Bill

The moment she woke up in the barn, I knew. I’ve been harping on “mirrors”, so I started crying within seconds. I knew that she’d be given a mirror shortly and likely would still not grasp what had happened. I did note that Twelve WAS kind kind when he was explaining to Bill what had happened, and when psychopath started mocking her in that accent I wanted to punch him in his stupid round face. But everyone did, amirite? (As an aside, given Twelve’s expressions and the limp in the scene in the barn, I was almost expecting him to start speaking with an American accent and pull a bottle of Vicodin out of that bag of jelly beans…).

I had had a nagging worry that Bill would turn out to be related to the Doctor or Missy/Master somehow. That would have answered a ton of questions but it would have felt cheap.

I also know Steven Moffat can’t win, and there will be attacks about “hand of God” because of the way Bill survived, but I don’t perceive the ending that way. The way the finale played out, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” DOES apply.

While describing what had happened to Bill, Missy said something that was entirely inconsistent with what she and the doctor had seen (there wasn’t a working heart to “scoop” out). We do not know what that gun did or did not do. We do not know what did or did not happen as part of being turned into a cyberman. We only know that the Doctor blindly believed he could fix it, only to later realize he could not.

As the extent of the injuries and harm Bill endured are unknowable (we cannot and should not believe the words of a psychopath who was getting off on inflicting as much suffering on those around him as possible), it is therefore plausible that an imaginary advanced technology (the sentient substance that was seen in “The Pilot”) was indeed able to cure Bill in a way that The Doctor could not.

And as far as I’m concerned, the conclusion of Bill’s storyline was FAR better than what I had suggested yesterday! Yesterday, in a post that intentionally had no hashtags, I mentioned something John Rogers’ had written: if you want to know what a show is about, rewatch the last scene of the pilot. I know that Bill’s rescue might feel unearned to some viewers, but I think it was perfectly foreshadowed in the last seen of “The Pilot”.

I also quite liked that when it came time to undo the horror that had happened to Bill, The Doctor was just set dressing. He didn’t help Bill. He didn’t save Bill. He was on the floor unconscious. His boasts and promises, no matter how sincere, were promises he has demonstrated over and over again that he could not keep.

I am no longer angry at Twelve (which is good since I bought most of seasons 8, 9, and 10!), but I do see his arrogance is unabated. It would have been disappointing to have had him control Bill (even if benignly!) all season, have her ripped from him by a psychopath who used and destroyed her simply to hurt the Doctor, only to have the Doctor claim credit for remedying the situation that only happened to Bill because of Bill’s proximity to the Doctor. I also am sad to admit that I still question how much he truly cared about Bill at all, as he consistently put her in too much danger and we were never told WHY he had chosen her out of his standing-room-only lectures.

To have Bill be rescued solely by Heather (young former-human who is making one helluva win out of a very bad situation!) after she learned how to control her new form of existence, all while the Doctor laid unconscious, was sadly perfect. He does not know that Bill survived. He cannot claim credit for Bill’s survival. With Heather, Bill now has complete agency over her future. I believe we can take Heather’s words as the truth: Bill can stay with Heather and be like her if she chooses, for as long as she chooses, or (“any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” applies!) Heather will make Bill fully human again if that is ever what Bill wants. It’s also significant that in “The Pilot” even though Bill sneaked into The Doctor’s lectures, she was only interested in the CLASS. He chose her for personal attention. Bill chose Heather and lost her. Heather chose Bill but could not control her new abilities. I was happy to see them fly away together. When the TARDIS doors closed behind them, that was the door slam heard around the…no where: there’s no sound in space…well yeah there’s sound inside the TARDIS…but if a TARDIS door slams closed in space and no one is conscious to hear it…OK YES it still produces sound waves inside said TARDIS, but…never mind.

I really am not angry at The Doctor anymore, but he had failed in every way possible, and Bill’s continued loyalty to him was less earned than the Full-Circle and explicitly foreshadowed possibility of seeing Heather again.

I liked it. I know there will be people who don’t, but I was very happy with it. I actually think it was perfect.

~~~~~~~~

Oh Missy, you really are so fine!

Like I wrote in the unhashtagged post, Michelle Gomez is so likable that her character literally can get away with murder. The way her death played out was tragic, but it was the only way the audience could truly believe that she was sincere in her attempt to reform. When Twelve pled to both Missy and the Master to please stand with him and simply TRY to help, Missy understood what The Doctor could not: her previous incarnation was simply too much of a psychopath to ever be redeemed. She said she could REMEMBER what it was like to think and “burn” the way he currently DOES (present tense) and that she will miss it.

Note that she REMEMBERS it because she DOES NOT perceive people or the world in that way any more. You can only MISS something when it’s GONE.

Understanding the paradox of them both being on that ship at the same time, and WITH HER OWN MEMORIES of being that other person NOW COMING BACK in flashes exactly as the Master’s memories of dying on the ship began FADING, Missy realized that she HAD successfully CONNED and SCARED her former self (Missy: “which REMINDS ME… a VERY SCARY LADY threw me against a wall and told me…”). This was all a ruse. Missy NEVER wavered in her intent to redeem herself.

The performances were perfect. Missy knew Twelve’s plea to her former incarnation was not even falling on deaf ears, instead Twelve would be heard clearly, would be mocked, and his words would be mined for any sign of compassion that could be exploited as a weakness. Every moment Twelve wasted trying to convince the Master to do the right thing was another moment giving the bastard ideas on how to undermine him. This was a situation where a lecture would HURT his chances at success. Missy knows who and what she had been, and she knew that the former version of herself would stop at nothing to undermine the Doctor and inflict as much pain and suffering upon the innocent inhabitants of that ship as possible. She needed to to make Twelve stop talking immediately. She needed to remove her former incarnation from the equation as quickly as possible.

She knew the only way to redeem herself was to commit one final act of violence. She had to stop her previous incarnation. The only way to do that was to make him trust her by appearing, just for the moment, to betray The Doctor.

She remembered being that man. Because she remembered it so clearly, she knew there was no reasoning with him. Her former incarnation had been a completely unrepentant psychopath. He perceived his cruelty as a sign of strength. Missy also remembered the scary woman, and now realized that woman had been HER.

Missy thought she would be able to get to the lifts, inflict a slow fatal injury upon her former self, allow him to make it back to his TARDIS in time to make the necessary repairs, leave, and regenerate into her current incarnation. She knew that would happen because it already did happen. It would resolve the paradox. As soon as the elevator doors closed, she intended to return to The Doctor and help him.

She understood her former self so well, yet she had genuinely changed so much that she failed to realize just how strong his current urge to “stop at nothing” was. I think she felt pity, and I think that is what cost her her life.

Her paradox-scrambled mind remembered the scary woman. Her paradox-scrambled mind DID NOT REMEMBER that her former self had murdered the scary woman.

The moment she was hit with the fatal blast, she realized the irony of her miscalculation.

That’s why she was laughing.

The Doctor gets the glory, but it was Missy who truly died a virtuous death. “Without hope. Without witness. Without reward.”

She died alone, apparently without the ability to regenerate, knowing the Doctor would always believe she had truly betrayed him. She knew the deck would be abandoned and destroyed. She knew she would never be found shot in the back. We know from “Heaven Sent” that her species takes “forever” to die even if they cannot regenerate.

Since her last words to the Doctor were words of betrayal spoken only with the intention of being heard by her former self, her sacrifice will never be known or even suspected. The only legacy of her existence will be the sins of her past.

We might THINK she killed Danny. We might WANT to think that she killed Danny. It’s easier to accept INTENT rather than “sometimes good people are the victims of terrible accidents.” The truth is, we have, per the scripts, ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE TO INDICATE MISSY HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH DANNY’S DEATH.

But… We do know Missy murdered Dr. Chang, the young man who had worked for her and liked her, for no reason at all.

We know Missy murdered Osgood for no reason at all.

We know Missy murdered multiple UNIT officers, one of whom was the father of a newborn baby, for no reason at all.

Depending on when Steven Moffat decided on the storyline about “The Hybrid” being Clara and Twelve together, Missy might have let Twelve shoot the Dalek cage holding Clara Prime. Even if The Hybrid was planned when “The Witch’s Familiar” was filmed and Missy would NOT have let Twelve kill Clara, her motivation was still rotten.

Missy personally has done so many things that are just plan unforgivable.

Now, though, by deliberately having her die where none but the audience would ever know what truly happened, we have no choice but to accept that she had truly developed a conscience. She regretted her prior actions. Her tears were real. Her motives pure.

Psychopaths are devoid of empathy, but they can instantly recognize it and exploit it. I was correct that the expression on Missy’s face at the end of “World Enough and Time” was compassion. Missy WAS deeply upset when she realized the cyberman was Bill. We KNOW Missy felt compassion because the Master STATED DIRECTLY THAT HE SAW SHE WAS FEELING EMPATHY. It disgusted him.

As noted, Twelve is still arrogant. We will never know if this was just a short window when Missy would have wanted to do the right thing, or if she actually could have been a force for good in the universe who died before she knew how to handle crisis situations because Twelve rushed her into this idiotic test. We know Michelle Gomez will not be back next season. The Doctor is going to change appearance because of the events of this episode, Missy is just plain dead.

Had they cast ANY ACTRESS OTHER THAN MICHELLE GOMEZ as Missy, honestly, WOULD WE CARE?

I don’t think so.

But they did.

And I do.

Her story was tragic.

Bravo, Michelle Gomez!

And BRAVO to Steven Moffat and Rachel Talalay.

[selfpublishingnews]

Last year, I came up with an idea. A far fetched idea though it may have been, it was something I really wanted to do. I wanted to combine all of the things I love into one project, and make it a reality. Those things were photography, helping those less fortunate than myself, physical printing, travel, traditional cultures, and the sharing of knowledge. The culmination of these would be both a hardcover and a softcover book. The publication of the results would be self-published using funds from a Kickstarter campaign. It might seem like a crazy undertaking for one person, but it's very doable if you plan it right.

The project would take me to western Myanmar in search of the last tattoo-faced ladies of the Lai Tu Chin people. I would live with the villagers for around a month, talking with them and photographing their culture for the purpose of producing the first ever book about their people. All in all, myself and the filmmaker came back with almost 500 GB of data. That included many hours of footage and approximately 12,000 stills to sort through. Backing up this data, post-processing, and designing the final product was only part of the project. The next step would be the most difficult of all: funding the project on Kickstarter. Below I'll run you through how I did it.

Think About Why

Before you even begin preparing for a Kickstarter campaign, think about why you want to crowdfund your project. Crowdfunding is a huge process and takes up a lot of your time. There may be a better, more efficient way to fund your project. Spend a little time thinking about this beforehand.

For me, crowdfunding made the most sense because I wanted to leverage my existing contacts, spread the word organically, and use the final product to raise more money without having to pay back any loans, etc. Also, because of the rewards system built into most crowdfunding platforms, I would be able to send copies of my book to all of my backers, further spreading the word. Kickstarter was the ideal platform for me because of its brand name and popularity. I felt that their reputation alone made them the place for me.

Prepare

Be ready. That is key to a successful crowdfunding campaign. Too many fail because of a lack of preparation, and too many take too long to fulfill because their idea isn't fully fleshed out before they start. I have backed campaigns that failed in both these ways, and by studying them, I was able to make sure mine would not fail in the same ways.

I knew I would need the deliverables to be ready, so before even beginning the campaign, we finished the design for the book, printed tests, and made sure that the printing could happen. This was key for me, because I wanted my backers to receive their books right away and I would be traveling back to Myanmar to deliver books to the villagers and my distribution networks.

The next step was to learn about promotion. I am not a marketer, and I knew that if I did it my way, I would fail. So, I searched far and wide for resources and asked everyone I knew for ideas. Some of the best resources I came across were Clay Herbert's CreativeLive course, Kickstarter's YouTube channel,  and our own Mike Kelley's article here on Fstoppers. From these, I learned a lot about self-promotion, marketing, and just getting my work in front of people.

Before launching the campaign, I over-prepared as much material as I could so that I would not be lacking during the funding process. This meant a folder on my hard drive filled with pre-prepared Instagram and Facebook posts, pre-written emails asking for support, blog posts, a Facebook page, plans for an exhibition in Seoul on the campaign launch day, videos about the journey and the process, and a bottle of The Balvenie for when I sent the Kickstarter live.

​I used Hootsuite to schedule all of my Instagram posts so they would pop up on my phone at the correct time and I could post them quickly and easily. The same was done for some of the Facebook posts. I head a core set of hashtags relating to the project and Kickstarter for every post, and only needed to add a few specific ones to each image before it would be ready for posting.

I also collected every email address I had and filtered it by hand to the people I thought might support the campaign. I divided the remaining addresses up into bite-sized chunks so that I wouldn't have to send out too many emails at once. I set myself a goal of 20 people per day to receive emails and stuck to this throughout the campaign. As for content, I had the core information typed into paragraphs, and all I would need to do was add a personal message for each recipient. I also added the details for the campaign, an explanation of the project, and a set of links people could share to further spread the word.

I was lucky throughout this process to be collaborating with a filmmaker and a designer who could make everything look really good. Again, my skills with video and design are limited, so it was much better to be working with those who do it well. Another great thing about having them on board was that we could all share the burden of social media promotion. That would not only lighten the load, but significantly increase our reach. Designs were prepared for several Facebook banners, milestones in the campaign, and mail-outs. These would be used throughout the campaign, and we didn't want to have to be making them on demand as events unfolded. The same was done with video. We had as much material as we thought we would need ready beforehand so we could simply post it when needed.

Once all of this was prepared, it was time to launch. I got everything ready for my exhibition in Seoul, and invited everyone I knew to join us for a glass of sparkling and a look at the test print for the book.

Launch

Launch is the most stressful time during the campaign. Once you click that button, all your hard work hits the stage and you are ready to be judged. I sat on the rooftop of my building, flipped through the book one last time with a glass of The Balvenie, and clicked the button. I quickly poured myself another glass, and sat back to relax. I deliberately planned to do nothing that day, because I knew my nerves would be a wreck.

This wasn't the only thing I had done, though. This was actually a soft launch. I had told a few close friends and family that I would be launching at one time, but to the world, I'd stated another time. This gave me a few hours to get contributions from those I knew would support me. It would take a little of the weight off my shoulders and make the campaign look really good when others came to visit. Once a few pledges had come in, I sent out my first few email blasts, made the official Facebook and Instagram launches, and gave my close friends one last call.

Then, it was time for the exhibition. I had around 100 attendees, most of whom contributed to the project right after we finished that night. This was an excellent event for marketing. We also had exclusive prints available to raise additional funds for the campaign.

Once this was done, I had a lot of links and content I could share with media. So I got in touch with editors I had worked with in the past and asked if there was anything they could do to help. This increased my reach even further, and lent a lot of credibility for those who perhaps didn't know me.

Throughout the campaign, we also visited our printers, made additional test copies, and checked everything about the project again and again. We filmed and photographed every step of the way, which made for great promotional material as the campaign progressed. Seeing things in the real world and not just as digital mock-ups helps people to trust you more.

Panic

There is a level of panic involved with a crowdfunding campaign. You're being judged on a public stage. Will people put their money down and support your work? I found that the best way to deal with this was to just keep promoting. I had so much material ready that every time I felt the panic rising, I would get to work. Invariably, that led to another pledge soon after, and I would feel better for a time. It's normal to be worried, so we just need to find ways of dealing with it.

Fulfill

Plenty of projects fail or disappoint at this stage. It can be difficult to anticipate setbacks before you actually face them. However, you can do a lot towards making sure you'll be able to get the final product out on time. When publishing, this means test prints and sit-down discussions with the printer to check every aspect of the process.

This project was very dear to me, and I wanted to make each and every fulfillment myself. I really don't recommend this unless you like pain. A much better solution would be to hire an intermediary to package and deliver for you, and I would certainly do this next time.

For this project, the other part of the fulfillment would be revisiting many of the villages to deliver books to them. Also, as the book was to be sold in Myanmar, I would have to hand deliver it to my distributors the first time and sign contracts. I have just returned from this trip, and it was extremely successful. My book is now available online, in Rangoon Tea House, Myanmar Book Centre, Yangon International Airport, various hotels in Mrauk U, and through my friend and translator Htwe Kyi. As I wrote on Fstoppers earlier this year, in order to achieve all of this, all I had to do was ask. Of course, some people do not have the capacity to support you, but I have found that if you are honest, you will gain more support than you could imagine.

In Conclusion

This is a basic outline of how I succeeded in self-publishing a book using Kickstarter, and I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you leave in the comments here. It's a complicated and lengthy process, but extremely valuable and humbling. If you're thinking of self-publishing, this may just be the way to go.

Complete article with photos appears here.

[delhi-architect2]

Journal - One Drawing Challenge 2020: The 100 Finalists (Part 3)

Explore a further 25 extraordinary architectural drawings, each one a Finalist in the 2020 One Drawing Challenge. Let us know which are your favorites on Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #OneDrawingChallenge!

← Previous 25 Drawings     Next 25 Drawings →

“House by the sea” by Kees Fritschy, Atelier Fritschy

“As a recent graduate during this unusual times, I start my architectural career different than expected.

The worldwide lockdown made people more bound to their houses than ever before. In a post pandemic situation people might ask for a home that includes different qualities. My painting investigates an atmosphere in which the inhabitants can experience a peaceful surrounding. A healthy environment where inside and outside space merge. Natural elements such as the sky, water and the views are decomposed to form a balanced composition with the architecture and inhabitant. The surroundings play an active role in the experience of the space.

I got inspired by architects such as Luis Barragan and Mies van der Rohe. The use of color is limited to a few tones as a statement of reduction. Nevertheless the colors are more or less necessary to increase the sensation of the place.”

“Stacking Collectives” by Mark Heinrichs, University of Toronto

“The dearth of affordable in many contemporary city’s is an issue many urbanites are uncomfortably familiar with. The problem is ubiquitous, and solutions are similarly scarce. Possibly through implementing a novel development strategy, programmatic amalgamation and unorthodox site selection, a potential solution may emerge: a stacking of collectives. This drawing visually summarizes a theoretical typology that would combine communal living, collaborative design, and collective financing and allow for a number of distinct groups of individuals to occupy a single, co-owned mid-rise tower.

These groups (those present in this drawing ranging from frat-boys to a covenant of nuns) would be present from the beginning of the design process and would contribute both financially and aesthetically to their portion of the building. This would allow for flexible layouts depending on desired function and a greater sense of ownership over the resulting building. An urban mid-rise becomes a stacking of collectives.”

“Turnme” by Jono Yoo, The University of Auckland

“As Banham walks into the battlefield of car exchange, the Turnme market, he hears vigorous interactions between the motorists of Auckland sharing values over the automobiles.

A rusty 1970s Ford calls out his name, peaking at him amongst the chaos of battling, bidding, and negotiation between sellers and buyers. Drawn by the life story of the Ford, Banham purchases the dear loved car so that he can mend him back to health to put to good use.

First of all, the title, Turnme is a compound word of Turners and Trademe, the two most predominant second-hand car markets of New Zealand. The reason for this wordplay is to highlight the unexpected autonomy and free expression advocated in the interactions held during the trading of used cars which includes, the display of cars, negotiation, bidding and most importantly the exchange of sign-value…”

“Incarceration Alchemy” by Kathryn Cybulski, University of Waterloo

“The time an inmate spends at the facility is under their control, no matter the crime committed, but under one condition: they must reach the top of the structure.

In order to do so, there are 50 levels the inmate must unlock, each level containing an important skill that must be learned and mastered, a fun activity, or something needed for survival. At the bottom of the structure is a massive library that contains the knowledge needed to follow a path to the top.

The exploration of new ideas, a new mindset, a new perspective and the possibility of a new life is rooted in the imagination. This system keeps the mind and imagination of inmates engaged, as they are always working towards a goal. Inmates have to earn their release and in the process of doing so, are able to gain valuable life skills and rehabilitate themselves.”

“Mechanized habitable vertical farm for a COVID generation” by Ian Lai, University of Pennsylvania

“Everyone is working from home during the COVID pandemic. How is office space rethought to integrate with the housing typology and its integrated systems? Is sustainability inherently tied to conservative building schemes and forms?

This project addresses the growing need for buildings in Philadelphia to be repurposed and reused in spite of increasing unemployment and the crisis of housing shortage during the coronavirus. Despite the rising numbers of unemployment and people’s needs to spend money simply on rent, food and water.

The use of vertical space, access to views an sunlight should not only be reserved for the upper class but any low-income population as well. By taking and extruding a volume of 600sqft from the site FAR and twisting it to account for wind forces as well as sunlight in angles round the building and pixelating the facade to increase surface area for rainwater catchment, the resulting form is achieved.”

“Making of a Place” by Abin Chaudhuri, Abin Design Studio

Conceived to introduce a peri-urban context to the viewer, this illustration aims to convey a sense of scale, lifestyle and spatial demographic of Bengal’s countryside within which numerous projects of Abin Design Studio are situated.

Dominated by a Temple complex and dotted with small lakes and open fields, the graphic highlights the insertion of the studio’s works in the region that introduced an entire community to the impact of design and the ability of architecture to expand beyond its footprint.

The illustration was meticulously created using various software such as Sketchup, AutoCAD, Illustrator and Photoshop.”

“A CITY OF NOWHERE” by Haoyu Wang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

“This drawing represents a notion of displacement in contemporary society by illustrating a fictional city that infinitely grows without a ground of belongingness.

While the world increasingly connects by technology, our lives and social existence are detaching from fixed places or communities. The pandemic of COVID-19 switches our work-live routines to virtual substitutes. On the other hand, social media raises the voices of migrants, refugees, and urban nomads on their identity crisis in constant resettling.

Can we translate displacements into architectural imagination? In A CITY OF NOWHERE, an infrastructural framework stretches three-dimensionally with interconnected mobility systems representing the force of technology. In contrast, the properties built upon the framework are independent of their neighbors in typology, culture, and social identity. This city nourishes a society where people enjoy optimized freedom of traveling and exploring while losing the materialized sense of home or community.”

“Smash Palace” by Jono Yoo, A12

“The next place that Banham visits is one that most cars of Autopia have been through, the Mechanical Theatre of Smash Palace; a place where his Ford finally transforms to become Banham’s unique counterpart. Banham trudges along the entrance, passing the oath stone of Mechanical Theatre stated by Karl Benz, that all Mechanics are devoutly tied by to clear their mind.

Inside, another scene unfolds. Mechanics at the surgical rooms diagnosing each car carefully, understanding that the car is an extension of the owner’s body, where above there is a showcase laid out for people to display and boast their modified car’s new look and performance.”

“Architecture without architects, a slum made out of stories” by Yennifer Johana Machado Londoño, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín

“It’s an everyday place in a nondescript slum in the outskirts of Medellín, but the longer you watch, the more you let yourself get unraveled in the stories that make the societal networks that, as if a tapestry, have been woven thread by thread by every humble Colombian family in the pursuit of a better life. It’s architecture without architects that, against violence and scarcity, stays on its feet as it hosts a community that makes its spaces their own and, little by little, rewrites its history. Its magic resides in the spontaneity, the ingenuity, the cooperation and the tight-knit urban relations that have been maintained and upheld even in the quarantine of 2020.”

“Unobtainable Cities” by Joanne Ho and Emily May

“Let’s face it: modes of production are being more efficient by the minute and we can’t stop it. We’ve developed 6-axis robotic arms that can 3-D print walls of a home. We’re surrounded by embedded smart sensors and intelligent systems that use our behavioral data to tell us what to conserve and when. Frankly, who isn’t speculating about the future of the infrastructure built by AI architects?

Through the use of Generative Adversarial Models (GAN), we have collected and trained over 500 images of architectural renderings and drawings. This drawing is a collage of images produced by the machine itself, and our personal stitching of an AI-built future entwined with nature.

“Unobtainable Cities” captures the atmosphere of the overwhelming enormity of a future where our lives are increasingly being designed for us, engulfing us in the thought of creating a superior intelligent entity, which ultimately writes our own fate.”

“Pilgrimage of Everyday Life” by Tzu-Jung Huang, The Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL)

“Pilgrimage of Everyday Life is capable of generating over 1300 litres of water per day, tremendously ameliorating the inefficiency of water collection, as well as creating ever-changing landscape formed by the glistening, translucent waxed linen. Also, the spiral structure amplifies the abundance of religious and natural power in this area, providing a place beneath it for people to worship the blue sky and celebrate the harvest of water. The plaza space can be highly flexible, used for meeting, food preparation, mediation and festive activities and so forth.

The stone floor radiates out from the well with a series of bamboo columns, reinforcing the notion of community, enhancing the transition from sacredness to openness and re-integrating the stunning surroundings. Thus, going to the community centre becomes a delightful and spiritual journey which one can experience personal and social transformation and celebrate the importance of local traditions, communal gatherings and Mother Earth.”

“Perpetual Home” by Kate Korotayeva, Ryerson University

“In order to survive as a species, today, we have to stay at home. In the last few months, the limits of home became a battleground for our work selves, social selves, sexual selves, creative selves, and other ways we choose to manifest our humanity. This perspective of an imaginary and perpetually changing home emerges as a monstrous amalgamation of our hugely expanded bodies, technology, and built form.

The tumor-like forms encroach into the territory of the former clearly defined domesticities and transform the image of what was once a home into the image of a new programmatic anomaly – a place that does everything. After years of socially distanced existence, this home has illegitimately transformed itself into a monster, constantly changing to meet professional, sexual, aesthetic, creative, and other needs of its confined owner.”

“The Illusion of Boundary” by Maira Waqar, Khan Office of Design

“What is reality? What if we can manipulate all the existential data and create a new world or maybe a new dimension? One that focuses on generating experiences by using various architectural elements as a means of informing space.

They exist in numerous forms in buildings where their use may be superficial or functional. However, they have astronomical potential to dominate space and make their presence felt. The architecture, like a well written chronicle stands in all its glory. The romance among the abstract structures, the chemistry can only be discovered by experience.

Welcome to a mixed reality space where it navigates between the physical and virtual realms. While the physical exists as a ground condition, the virtual constructs enclosures and thresholds that are at both permanent and ephemeral.

They collide and transcend the boundaries of the real world, elevating it into a new reality. New possibilities with no horizons.”

The Melting Archive by Thomas Riddell-Webster, University of Westminster

“Based on sensitive speculation, this drawing proposes a temporary architecture to soften Hanoi city, amid a rapidly developing urban context. Hanoi’s 1000 year old tradition of kite flying provides a vehicle for the creation of temporary spaces that will facilitate Hanoi’s street culture, a culture that relies on permeability to provoke spontaneous interaction.

This drawing questions the path of Hanoi’s development towards a western city and proposes an alternative technology, in reference to Hanoi’s past, that provides the tools for the organic social reconstruction of the present and the future.

Pectin, Cellulose and Chitosan, extracted from kite production, combine to form bio-polymer building components that contribute to temporary spaces, designed to melt back into earth’s ecosystem after several years. Unlike architecture as we know it, each decay provides the opportunity for redesign thereby allowing a sustainable and affordable infrastructure to evolve across the city, in harmony with contemporary social requirements.”

“The Duckpit” by Jakob Jakubowski, Academy of fine Arts Vienna

“The Duckpit project is a critical interface for a collaborative reaction on a borderline of virtual and “real”, an architectural speculative device for re[dis]covering economical and social glitches in political propaganda. An old ruin in the alternative Sava-Mala district was scanned and so digitally preserved before it’s demolition for the Belgrade Waterfront development, a giant ambiguous housing and commerce implant to the heart of the city.

Through a fictional transformation of this ruin into a digital-underground art gallery, people are asked to use their voice (click) for a new kind of protest against the capitalist savage sign, Belgrade Waterfront. With the help of an elucidated website this project becomes a digital art installation itself, the subject of a parasite-sabotage from within a structure is introduced and growing with every voice to a governing manipulating virus, which transforms the construction site and so gives the city back to its habitants.”

“A Tribute to My Grandmother : Her Real Battles with Dementia” by Ker Xin Lee, Loughborough University

“This drawing is my architectural interpretation of my grandmother’s daily struggles with dementia. As a young girl growing up with her, I witnessed how her dementia progressed as she aged. The drawing illustrates her journey with dementia and encapsulates a glimpse of her confusing memories.

It depicts her vivid childhood memories of China as a young girl before she fled, her struggles to find her way home when she got lost in our neighborhood, her hallucinations and delusions, and finally, her last few weeks in the hospital due to failure in parts of her brain, inhibiting her feelings of hunger or thirst.

Dementia causes the brain to deteriorate and can be disorientating to the patient. I wish to raise awareness about Dementia and hope to someday be able to design purpose built architecture, which helps slow the deterioration process and improve the quality of life for those with dementia.”

“The Unity Center” by Joana Benin, Ryerson University

“In a future communist society, humans must be taught how to interact with one another in a world that fosters equality and stability. To avoid conflict and live peacefully, the Unity Center is youth’s first exposure to volatile emotion and social interaction. The center aims to provide spaces where youth can experience different types of emotion within a safe environment to build an emotional tolerance to conflict and distress.

The movement through the building is a ride that conforms to the idea that the physical nature of the Unity Center no longer needs to be restricted by traditional design standards, allowing for molding of the architecture purely for user experience. The structure is a membrane that shapes according to the youth’s emotional capacity, becoming ’a womb;’ from which a new understanding of emotion emerges. The four main spaces exhibit the most commonly encountered emotions: frustration, fear, melancholy and joy.”

“VIRTUAL | REALITY” by Giangtien Nguyen, Afreen Ali, Aziz Alshayeb and Erik H Kusakariba, INVI LLC

“When our streets became empty and we are isolated in our own homes, humans will feel the need to connect through our digital infrastructure. As our reality becomes more physically unconnected, while our virtual city strengthens in connectivity, it creates a juxtaposition visually between our crowded virtual city and our empty reality.”

“Hemp Tech Garden” by Umar Mahmood, University of Pennsylvania

“The drawing is a top view of a new market designed in Callowhill district of Philadelphia. The market provides facilities of Hemp products. It is designed by building, carving and rebuilding reliefs from defamiliarized neighborhood artifacts. The market is serving the city with sustainable, environmentally friendly and ethical products. It carves its identity in the city as the density of ubiquitous elements while having unique courtyards of rare figures.

The market has five quadrants, each has a mat density of crisscross Cartesian elements which break their own limits and intersect with elements in adjacent quadrant. The main difference between each quadrant are the unique figural artifacts. Functionally, the market operates on four sections. The retail space, industrial section, harvesting area and public gardens. Each program operates on different level. The market has an industrial and synthetic programmatic interaction with the city. Moreover, it inhabits nature by providing urban farming platform.”

“Phantasmagoria: A Cautionary Tale” by Rawan AlWazna, School of The Art Institute of Chicago

“As the world pauses at this moment in time amid a pandemic that, more than ever, has been exposing various aspects of deception, image-making and defactualization in existing structures and systems of powers, we confront ideas about our built environment; a manifestation of the habitat or the inhabitant? The structure or the institution?

Phantasmagoria is a meditation on such struggle, fear and censorship in storytelling, an invitation to extend our perception beyond the physical appearance, and ultimately, a statement about the right to narrate our own stories.

Structures transform into active protagonists in this rig-like city which disguises gruesome truths through its festive facade. The “All-seeing-eye Tower” stands tall, higher than everything else, making sure other characters like the “Injustice Police”, a character of arbitrary detention, and the “Instant Oases”, a character of constant displacement, do their job well. These carnivalesque machines are the characters that make up this city.”

“after work” by Yoonsoo Kim and Christoph Schmollinger, TU München

“Many people predict that in the future automated systems will replace our work. There will be countless unemployed people, who will receive universal basic income(UBI). Then, where should we go and what can we do?

Hannah Arendt classified human behavior into three different categories. “labour” is obligatory behavior for survive, “work” is useful behavior for production. Through “Action”, we can express our identity. And “action” cannot be replaced by automated systems.

The underground space in this drawing is a space for “action”. The more you go down, the more powerful, social and communal action takes place. Hannah Arendt subdivided the action into three further. Accordingly, we structured the underground dome-shaped space. In the space of “Willing” at the top, individual actions are drawn, in the space of “Judgement” at the bottom, collective actions are drawn, and in the space of “Thinking” at the middle, the process between them is drawn.”

“Archicov19” by Angela Ruiz Plaza, Polytechnic University

“The new Archicov-19 system is invading the world. It can solidify sand, or float amid clouds, parasite old cities or dive into the sea. It is a living organism made out of fungi, bacteria and nature, in symbiosis and behaving like an ecosystem. Earth can finally breathe, and we live happy and healthy in its bubbles.

When it grows in the desert it uses Bacillus Pasteurii bacteria to solidify sand so it is an artificial oasis in the dunes. When in the sea it makes shell structures with microalgae diatoms, and using the oxygen it produces. When it floats, it uses Helio in the bubbles of the architectural skin. When it parasites an old city, it uses garbage to grow, recycling materials. Life has changed so much since 2020, and now we live in peace, in this bioarchitecture, living according to our soul, in ecological balance with the whole nature.”

“Pinnacle at White Hill” by Philip O’Brien, Johnson Roberts Associates Inc

“‘Pinnacle at White Hill’ illustrates a self-contained, covered city at time when the Earth’s atmosphere has been degraded to the point that life in the natural environment is no longer sustainable. The caramel sky and red-brown earth visible beyond the protective film of the city cover tells the story of an environmental disaster out of control.

The central portion of the city is free from vertical supports with the exception of the Pinnacle. The Pinnacle is at once the center support for the dome’s superstructure, the focal point of the city, and the seat of city governance and management. Planning and zoning is evident in the layout of the public ways, parks, artificial waterways, and building limits. Green space dominates the city and is used as the organizing principal in the layout of White Hill, where recycling and reuse — including air, food and water — is required to survive.”

“Redwood” by Gregory Klosowski, Pappageorge Haymes Partners

Dubbed “Redwood”, this series of sketches are pure architectural escapism, testing exceedingly optimistic visions of possible futures, assuming the resolution of base societal issues through exotic approaches (limitless fusion energy, asteroid harvesting for raw materials, robotic assembly techniques). Intentionally fantastical, the intent is to spark imaginative thinking outside of practical constraints of current structural technologies.

In this iteration, towering structures drop into place, akin to redwoods falling in a forest, allowing new structures to shoot upward from the carcass, pulling cabling and piping upward, forming swaths of elevated fields, suspended transit systems stringing between the towering forms, and an endless array of habitats, blurring construction and organics.

While arguably irresponsible to brush aside big problems, its worth exploring, given decades of apocalyptic visions are have not proven persuasive. Taking an alternate approach, encouraging and positive visions might better spark the imagination and inspire consideration for wider timescales and broader solutions.

“Apartment #5, a Labyrinth and Repository of Spatial Memories” by Clement Laurencio

“In this frightening period of the pandemic, travel has become unsafe and restricted. The future bears uncertainty, if and when we may travel to experience new places, and re-visit places of our past. Places which once drew people are now “indefinitely” and “temporarily closed”, with no certain opening date. We are isolated in our homes…left with our memories of those faraway places. Locked in our dwellings, we long to be able to escape to a past before the lockdown, to places far away from here.

Residing in London, the dwelling curates spatial experiences from a recent voyage to India. Set both in real space and imaginary space, the project seeks to re-create those atmospheres and spatial conditions of the places remembered through memories.

The memories are rekindled, by manipulating scale, forced perspective and atmospheric phenomena of the places. However, they may become embellished, corrupted, re-imagined; a labyrinth of memories…”

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The post One Drawing Challenge 2020: The 100 Finalists (Part 3) appeared first on Journal.

from Journal https://architizer.com/blog/competitions/one-drawing-challenge-2020-finalists-part-3/ Originally published on ARCHITIZER RSS Feed: https://architizer.com/blog

[jillmckenzie1]

How I Got Out of My Toxic Relationship

It’s 2:01am. And, I want to go to sleep. Truly, I do. But, my mind is mulling over the current state of affairs in the Supreme Court nominations. I spent the better part of this afternoon really listening to the testimonies of both Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh.

But, let me be clear, this post has nothing to do with politics.

No, this story is about a 34-year-old female who is finding herself inside a conversation that is questioning whether or not women are truthful when it comes to explicating their experiences. And, be it good or bad, I am now finding a way to attach conscious thoughts to emotions that I felt two, five, ten years ago. Because, what is resonating with me so clearly right now is the word “embarrassed.” Women have chosen silence for fear of not being taken seriously, for fear of being wrong, for fear of saying something that the world may perceive as being different than what is actually true.

So, at 2:01am (make it 2:04am), I’m being smacked in the face by two distinct realizations.

One. We, as humans, love to create stories around how, we think, other people are receiving our humanness. These metaperceptions are generally tainted by our own view of ourselves and our inept ability to reason that no two people in this world think exactly the same way; therefore, our claim that “most people” will feel a certain way about our actions is not founded in any truth. And, worst of all, it silences us from sharing the most authentic version of ourselves and chasing our happiest state of existence because we decide the outcome of a choice before giving ourselves an

opportunity to actually experience it.

Two. There is a deep running understanding in our society that men’s overall treatment of women is poor, but silently accepted. My evidence for this statement is visible in the language that most, if not all, of my male friends use when they speak of having children: “If I ever have a daughter, I’m never letting her leave the house” or “I hope I have a son so that I only have to worry about one male; if I have a daughter, then I have to worry about all males.” Yes, there is a reason for the adage of “daddy’s girl,” but I want to suggest that there is something much deeper happening here, and that depth exists because I spent 99.9% of my current life being completely unphased by such irrational statements. I smiled and I nodded because I, too, would deductively reason the same ideology. Because, gawd, yes, being a woman is really fucking hard sometimes. But, for adults to be able to verbalize that they don’t want to raise girls because they don’t want to carry those girls’ burdens, which are completely centered on how males treat them, is worthy of our analysis and attention. Most importantly, it is worthy of us doing something to change that stigma.

Side note. I have never been a man, so yes, the above comments are jaded by my own bias. And, this is not all to say that women don’t do shitty things. Because, wow, we do some crappy stuff, people. What I’m attempting to do is articulate my experience. I am trying to give a voice to my testimony. Because, for a long time, I willingly bit my tongue. Out of insecurity. Out of fear. I was in constant pursuit of affirmation that what I was experiencing was real. That I was really hurting. That my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me. And, if it were true that I was really hurting, then I wanted affirmation that I had a viable reason to hurt. That I wasn’t being soft. Or irrational. Or stupid.

So, I want to unpack a relationship from my life that, for many years, brought me a lot of shame. I want to stand here without reservation to exist only inside of this story long enough to tell it and then also to acknowledge that I was able to walk away from it a far better person for having been there.

Observation Point (Zion National Park)

Let’s begin. If one could earn points in dating, I’m quite convinced I would be in the negatives. I just do not have the genetic makeup or the desire to play the games that, it seems, are characteristic to successful courtship. I operate in two speeds in every facet of my life, and the same is true for people. If I like you, I will love you. If I love you, I will ride or die with you. This ladder is not exclusive to romantic relationships, and I must clarify that I am inclined to have three deep relationships in my life than to have 30 acquaintances. If given a choice, I’ll take depth over breadth. On the flipside, if I don’t like you, I will waste no time with you. Literally. Zero time. So, I repeat, I suck at dating. I fall hard. Or, I peace out quickly. And, a year ago, I would have felt a need to apologize for that. But, I have learned that an apology is altogether unnecessary. I am allowed to be this way because this way is not wrong. The other way is not right. I must simply be conscious of this quality and recognize where I am open to get hurt myself and to hurt other people.

I wish I had gleaned this awareness much earlier on in life, but I suppose this is the joy of aging. If you follow me on Instagram, then you know that I talk a lot about having been in a toxic marriage. I also talk a lot about being out of a toxic marriage. While the vulnerability piece does not intimidate me, I often find it hard to shed light on the actions. For a long time, I struggled to use words like “domestic violence” because I had convinced myself that I needed two black eyes in order to bear this cross.

I am here to tell you that you do not, in fact, have to suffer from any type of physical abuse to be a victim in your relationship. In fact, I recall many nights where I begged for a swift right hook to the face if only to make the verbal abuse end.

And, at this point, we should probably go back to the beginning. When he and I played on the same co-ed indoor soccer team, and we’d all go drink beers after our games, and he’d always offer to be my chauffer. I wasn’t in a place in my life to have a serious relationship. Without turning this into a 5000-word diatribe, I will admit that I had recently been divorced. Yes, I got married when I was freshly 21-years-old to a guy in the military who convinced me that it would be a financially smart decision (don’t do this, ladies). Our hot mess college relationship translated into a hot mess marriage, and we were divorced within the year. In all sincerity, it feels like so many lives ago that I barely even recognize it as being a part of my story, but I also know that we were incredibly immature and lacked nearly every possible tool to “make it” (as they say).

For clarification, this guy will not be referenced further, and any mention of my ex-husband will be directly related to soccer guy from the beginning of the previous paragraph.

Said soccer player was also not in a position for a relationship. He was living in Colorado for work with every intention of one day moving back to Ohio to be near his family. So, I moved to Portland for a job, and six months later he moved back to Louisville for work. I didn’t think we’d speak again (for the record, these are always the famous last words).

We didn’t speak. For about six months. But, he slowly crept back into my inbox (I’m going to age myself and point out that “sliding into the DMs” was not yet a thing). At the end of the school year (hashtag, teacher life) I moved to Kentucky. He immediately prefaced my move with the statement, “I can’t call you my girlfriend.” Perfect. Great. We’ve just been talking every day for the last six months. That makes sense. His inability to commit all along should have been the only red flag that I ever needed, but my damn diehard personality (coupled with my 20-something naiveté) would not let it go.

So, this dance continued for over two years in the Bluegrass State. I became super close with his family, and we honored the fact that they were very religious and did not believe that living together was socially acceptable. We hung out every night, but there were times when I wouldn’t stay with him, and while I believed at that point that he partied a little too hard for his own good, I wrote it off to the fact that he grew up in a strict household and never drank until he was 21-years-old.

It’s a phase, I said. It will pass, I said.

When we got married, I was really exposed to another side of him that I had only glimpsed in our dating life. And, before I even fast forward to this whole marriage status, I want to point out that I clearly felt in my heart that I was making the wrong choice the day that I walked down the aisle. Yes. Nothing sat well with me in the months leading up to this spectacle. But, I had already said yes, and the invitations were sent, and people had RSVP’d, and then, fuck, they were all sitting right there waiting for some grandiose entrance from yours truly. I didn’t want to let anyone down.

Hear that. At the cost of my own life, I created a story of what people would think about me if I backed out on such a commitment, so I followed through because I assumed that the story that they created would paint me in a negative light.

As imagined, it was never what I wanted or needed it to be. We immediately started going to counseling. Our therapist fired him because she said he had a drinking problem that she was not expertly trained to handle. He chastised me for continuing to go see someone who was dumber than him. I went to Al-Anon. I worked the twelve steps. I found a mentor. I begged him to get help.

And, again, I struggled with defining a word that carried so much weight: alcoholism. He was successful. He was well-liked. He didn’t wake up slinging booze from the side of his bedstand.

No. It was a silent fall. It was the seventh shot of Fireball at 1:37am, already eight beers deep, where his eyes would glaze over, and I would quietly hug myself on the walk home in fear of saying just one wrong thing. Because, I had learned that to fight this beast in its natural element was nothing short of a recipe for pure terror. I stopped feeling. I stopped going out altogether. I stopped drinking. Because, how can you beg someone to stop doing something that you are, in fact, doing yourself? Most importantly, I needed control of my every breathe. There was not a single moment that I could lapse on my judgment.

Because, when I lapsed, when I lost my patience or wisdom or sanity, I would unfurl every ounce of pain that was hiding under my skin. I would scream and cry out for every city street that I had ever walked home alone: Nashville, Louisville, San Diego, Cabo San Lucas, Chicago, Nasau, Denver. I can’t recall a single city we visited together that doesn’t also have a story about my 3:00am lost and lonely trek back to a hotel that I managed to find through only a decent sense of direction. And, the screaming and the crying that would seep from my pores would be met with the hatred as deep as the Devil.

Like that one night in December. After the Justin Timberlake concert. When he, at first, wouldn’t let me up the stairs to go to bed. I was actually so scared that I ran into the guest room on the first floor and hid under the flimsy covers of the bed, hugging the dog for dear life as if she could transport me anywhere but there. Unfortunately, despite childhood dreams, covers do not make one invisible. So, he came in screaming, violently pointing his finger over top of me in between my beady eyes. And, I knew I couldn’t cry. Because, I needed every ounce of my own strength to prevent a complete downward spiral into my own oblivion. And, I ran up the stairs, hoping to lock myself in our room (a tactic that I knew would fail) as he forced me into the laundry room. He stared at me with his hollow soul and silently begged for me to cower in the corner. I did not. I pleaded for him to hit me, to give physical pain to the words that were cutting into any ounce of dignity that still existed inside of me. Instead, he slid his hands around my throat. He locked my neck inside of his fingers and pressed me firmly against the wall. He reminded me of all the money that he had made, money that didn’t belong to me, while I pathetically lived in the house that only he could afford. Yes, he reminded me. And, I flung my fists with every attempt to kill until he finally let me go. The next morning, he’d apologize. Like he always did. And, I’d remember that I’m poor. And, I’d be embarrassed that I was weak. And, I’d teach myself not to feel. I’d teach myself to be invisible.

I finally stopped going out altogether. I became a recluse. I lived out the daily façade of having my life put together in my perfect neighborhood. Meanwhile, I was dead. And, for six months (that I know of), he was having an affair with a woman who worked under him. Ironically, I learned about this relationship after leaving him, which oddly brings me a small sense of joy.

I left him because of me, not him.

I looked back on my life in a single moment with him and realized that we had done nothing to grow for 365 days. We weren’t becoming better together, which translated into us not becoming better individuals. I couldn’t sit with that. I finally stopped listening to the voice that told me everyone would judge me so critically for being divorced. I knew that my fear of turning 50 and waking up to someone who caused me so much internal pain, coupled with the fact that I refused to procreate with such an individual and yet I wanted kids, meant making the harder choice between two hard choices.

In all sincerity, I often ask myself, how the hell did I get out of that mess? I’ve come to see this moment of my life a lot like a car accident. It is paradoxically fast and slow. And, I am overwhelmed by people who seek me out for guidance in this stage of life, married or not. I’ve come to believe that getting out of a toxic relationship is as gradual of a process as getting into one. And, I’m awake at what is now 2:58am, because my story matters. Christine Blasey Ford’s story matters. Your story matters. Because, it’s not okay. It was never okay.

I’ve spent over two years reintroducing myself to myself. Yes, reintroducing myself to myself. Because I wanted to be alive. I tried new things, things that I had expressed interest in but didn’t ring true when I was in the relationship, things that I ignored because he made me think that I wasn’t “that kind of person.”

I leaned on my friends and family. I learned to not make up people’s stories for them. Often times, when we are in toxic relationships, the closest people to us are fully aware of our circumstance. And, we will frequently verbalize that we need to leave or that we’re going to leave. But, we do not. Because, staying is easy. Even when it’s hard. Leaving is fucking hard. Even when it seems easy. So, if you’ve tried to leave this person before and you’ve gone back, the trust with your support system may be weak. I have learned to never underestimate your vulnerability. If you show people you want help (even if it is again), you might be surprised.

As expected, I took trips alone. Even when it was scary. Because I really knew that the only way I would be ready for another relationship would be if I were comfortable with myself first. And I had allowed that relationship to make me a version of myself that I never wanted to become again: insecure, fragile, angry.

Humphreys Peak (Flagstaff, Arizona)

Finally, I had to completely remove him from my life to move forward. Alcoholism is deadly. The person has to want to help him or herself. If not, there is no hope for better. It took me going through hell to really resonate with the fact that I was not responsible for him. If you are here, please hear me, I promise there is a great life waiting for you on the other side.

People sometimes ask me how I do it again. How I put myself out there. I want to get defensive about this statement

because I am extremely hypercritical of myself for being a divorcee, but I am open to the idea that they are actually softening their hearts to the fact that they think I am brave for trying again. Usually, they have also been hurt, and they have not been able to open their hearts in such a way that I feel is right for me in order to have the life that I want to have. I don’t think I’m brave. I think I just opened my eyes. I think I just committed to a life of never settling. And, I will always stay opportunistic to the idea that my match exists somewhere inside this crazy planet called Earth. If that means exposing myself to heartbreak, I’ll take feeling everything over and over again than a life of feeling nothing at all.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/how-i-got-out-of-my-toxic-relationship/

[ethelbertpaul444-blog]

19 Feuds that Prove No One Does Drama Better than Celebrities

Don’t you simply dislike drama? It’s so wearying. There are just so many acts you have to deal with. Making the popcorn. Buttering the popcorn. Seeing a good seat. But we do what have to do. Advertisement div > Nobody does drama better than luminaries . b> div > Getty Images So while we know it’s a lot of work, it’s time to get up and start searching the cabinets for the Orville and get poppin.’ Here are 19 of the craziest celebrity feuds of all time. Advertisement div > div > Megyn Kelly vs. Jane Fonda div > via: Getty Images Talk about a face-off between two seriously strong and terrifying alpha-females. It’s a miracle that Megyn Kelly didn’t instantly turn to stone after she received the look of death from Jane Fonda, after asking her about plastic surgery on live television. Jane successfully evaded the issue and redirected those discussions back to the movie but Fonda was nowhere near done talking about the incident. She went on to criticise Kelly in various subsequent interrogations, claiming that Kelly is” not a good examiner” for expecting a question that was ” so inappropriate .” On her see, Megyn Kelly is a response to Fonda’s comments in a highly organized attack. She blamed Jane Fonda for her contentious trip to Vietnam in’ 72 which earned her the unfavorable nickname “Hanoi Jane” and claimed that Fonda” had not yet been business castigating anyone on what prepares as offensive .” Advertisement div > div > Vin Diesel vs. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson div > via: Getty Images Perhaps these two celebs were duelling it out for best baldy in Hollywood. While killing the final representations of Fast and Furious 8 , em> Dwayne’ The Rock’ Johnson posted an likenes hashtagged with the quotation “zero tolerance for candy-asses.” While it was unclear at the time who precisely’ The Rock’ was specific referring to as a candy-ass, another post of Johnson’s would clear up any candy-ass confusion. It was an image of the direct and crew under which he thanked practically everyone from the plane service girlfriend to Fast and Furious Fans, yet nowhere in his affix did he thanks the films co-producer, Vin Diesel. And while’ The Rock’ continued to confirm the squabble on the welcome mat of the film’s debut, Vin Diesel managed to defuse suspected hostilities that same night, by commenting on the closeness of the two’s relationship. It’s not always easy being an alpha. And it’s two alphas. Being an alpha is sometimes a pain in the ass . em> Tell me about it, Vin. But at the end of the day, according to Diesel, the people we consider to be our category are our genealogy, candy-assed or not. At my house,[ Dwayne Johnson] is’ Uncle Dwayne’ and I’m proud of that . em> Oh, gag me with a spoon! This ” duel” between two of the( presumably) “toughest” chaps in Hollywood perfectly epitomizes just how sorry workers are at the skill of drama. Unlike female feuds, where a public oral combat to the death follows, in which no youth, grandmother, pet, or blasphemed secret is off limits. Just look at Megyn Kelly, she had to dig back 40 years to come up with a half-decent clap-back, but she dug in with both paws and did the drudgery, like a real woman. Was it right? Absolutely not. But at the least her backside isn’t eternally sticky, like these candy-ass baldies. Advertisement div > div > Jay-Z vs. Kanye West div > via: Getty Images When the two mega hip-hop masters first worked together, rumors began to run that Jay-Z didn’t want to sign Kanye on with Roc–AFella Registers but claims to have half-heartedly signed him in an attempt to” at the least, keep the trounces in-house .” While the two seemed to develop a friendship despite any past matters, Kanye made it clear in his song about the relations between the two countries( yes, a song about their relationship ), Big Brother, that he was still butthurt. Apparently, Kanye didn’t realize being toldby Jay-Z to start buy tickets to his substantiate after asking his big bro for a duo and expressed this sentiment in his lyrics… Only situation I wanna know is why I get ogled over. I guess I’ll understand when I get more older. Big brother experienced me at the bottom of the totem. Now I’m on the top and everybody on the scrotum . em> When Jay Z didn’t accompanied Kanye and Kim’s wedding nuptials, West replied,” All that, I wouldn’t even speak on. It doesn’t even matter to me whatsoever .” And afterward, after both of their children were born, Kanye greatly carried angst toward his “big brother” where reference is articulated,” Our children ain’t never even played together.” Eventually, Jay Z “ve had enough” of Kanye’s evaluations, and so he announced Kanye out in his line “KILL JAY” for his” f-everybody posture” and continues at, calling West “insane.” Apparently, West had also had enough and made am of the view that TIDAL owed him 3 billion dollars right before officially chipping ties with the streaming service. Jay-Z lately addressed the bro-drama, clarifying,” I enjoy Kanye. I do. It’s a complicated affair with us … But it’s gonna, we gonna ever be good .” Why didn’t these two time get onto over with and debate it out, face-to-face, 8 Mile status? Advertisement div > div > Susan Sarandon vs. Debra Messing div > via: Getty Images Get “re ready for” revenge of the redheads. Things curdled political in a twitter struggle between Susan Sarandon and Debra Messing after Sarandon suggested that she may not backing Hilary Clinton, should Bernie Sanders be booted out of the presidential race. Messing publicly carried the issue as to whether Sarandon would share her same sentiment should she be” poverty-stricken, homosexual, Muslim or an immigrant” in a tweet. Despite Sarandon clarifying that she would not be voting for Donald Trump, the two went back and forth on titter aiming, at least publicly, with Messing announcing Sarandon’s principles “sanctimonious.” Advertisement div > div > Katy Perry vs. Taylor Swift div > via: Getty Images While it seemed as though the two pop-icons were affectionate for some time, that would all change after various of Taylor Swift’s backup dancers unexpectedly cease and were abruptly booked to perform on Katy Perry’s tour. After years of speculation, Swift eventually interpreted the incident that extended her to write her epic-smash-hit “Bad Blood” about Perry, in an interview with Rolling Stone. She claims that Perry” mostly tried to sabotage an part realm expedition of hers by hiring her gang out from under her. In return, Katy alleged Swift of” trying to assassinate her person .” After several years and a few ballads, the popping combat finally came to a shut when Perry literally referred an olive branch to Swift with a tone calling a moratorium and formally rationalizing for her part in the mess. Taylor posted a picture of the notation and olive branch on Instagram with the caption,” Thank you Katy” along with a centre emoji. We’re not sure precisely who was right and who was wrong in this hot mess of a theatre but points to Perry for the elegant gesticulate and same to Swift for knowing when it’s time to let go of “Bad Blood” and just move on. Advertisement div > div > Neil Patrick Harris vs. James Woods div > via: Getty Images In reference to an image of an 8-year-old boy with their own families at Pride, James Woods tweeted a response that is as inappropriate as it is offensive. The actor wrote,” This is sweet. Wait until this poor adolescents grows up, realizes what you’ve done, and materials both of you amputated into a freezer in the garage.” Wait, huh? We’re disorient and James Woods is weird. Neil Patrick Harris fired back at Woods, announcing specific comments, “Utterly ignorant and classless .” Harris continued, lending,” I’m friends with this family. You know not of what you speak, and should be ashamed of yourself .” Amen, Neil Patrick. Urge! Advertisement div > div > Sarah Jessica Parker vs. Kim Cattrall div > via: Getty Images We hate to abound your bubble, but rumors regarding Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall’s strained liaison supported true when, upon the enact of her brother, Cattrall wrote this remorseless call-out on Instagram TAGEND My Mom asked a question today “When will that @sarahjessicaparker, that charlatan, leave you alone? ” Your incessant contacting out is a unpleasant reminder to seeing how brutal “youve been” was later and now. Let me make this Awfully clear.( If I haven’t previously) You are not my family. You are not my friend. So I’m writing to tell you one last-place time to stop manipulating our tragedy in order to restore your’ neat girl’ persona . em> Yikes, wow, and ouch. Advertisement div > div > Lady Gaga vs. Kelly Osbourne div > via: Getty Images After Lady Gaga wrote an open letter to Kelly Osbourne alleging her of has become a “bully,” Osbourne seemed more than simply a bit confused when Gaga apparently attempted to make peace by referring her a birthday cake. Osbourne tweeted : Not to be ungrateful but why would you move me a birthday cake via MY MOTHER in a country half the world apart? #EatMySh* t Hmmm. Well, we’re not entirely sure why Gaga moved her anything at all, and we’re too not sure she understands the word, “ungrateful.” If Lady Gaga sends you a cake, you eat it, and you like it. Advertisement div > div > Jennifer Lawrence vs. Chloe Sevigny div > via: Getty Images While it seems to be the general consensus that actress Jennifer Lawrence is likable, according to colleague actress, Chloe Sevigny, she’s really not. In an interrogation with V store, Sevigny was explained that while she adoration fellow actresses Angelina Jolie and Emma Stone, “shes not”, I reiterate, NOT, a fan of J-Law. Jennifer Lawrence, I find exasperating. Too indelicate . em> Okay, Chloe, route to tell it like it is. And while Sevigny is certainly entitled to her belief, one might find such an unprompted proclamation, I don’t know, extremely crass? Advertisement div > div > Gwyneth Paltrow vs. Martha Stewart div > via: Getty Images It all began when Martha Stewart was asked her belief on Gwyneth Paltrow’s attempt to break into the “lifestyle” industry with her managerial Goop em> launch. Stewart seemed less than impressed and seemed to question the faithfulnes of Paltrow’s professional pursuits. But Stewart wasn’t done slamming the stellar, going on to eventually articulate that Gwyneth” simply needs to be quiet. She’s a movie star. If she were confident in her play, she wouldn’t be trying to be Martha Stewart .” Gwyneth responded by recommending she was totally unphased by Stewart’s comments but, if anything, was flattered that Martha considered her as “competition.” Perhaps Martha was merely welcoming Paltrow to the table … in her own, crafty way. After all, the fine art of passive-aggressiveness is prerequisite to lifestyle living. And, apparently, Gwyneth can hold her own just fine. Advertisement div > div > Angelina Jolie vs. Chelsea Handler div > via: Getty Images After news broke of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s divorce, Chelsea Handler did not hesitate to express her thinkings on the divide, calling Jolie a” f *#% ing lunatic” and the divorce” an emancipation” of kinds for Pitt. The explanation behind Handler’s blatant disfavor of Angelina Jolie is an age-old and widely acceptable excuse for disliking a fellow female; She messed around with her friend’s man. That’s right. Handler is good friends with Pitt’s jilted ex, Jennifer Aniston. It all obligates ability now. Advertisement div > div > Kim Kardashian vs. Chloe Grace Moretz div > via: Getty Images As soon as the internet rebooted after Kim Kardashian’s naked selfie briefly break-dance it, Kim was reacted with a fling from actress Chloe Grace Moretz. Moretz replied to Kardashian scant selfie by reminding Kim that she is an example to young girls who need to know that they are” so much more than precisely their own bodies .” However, Moretz’ assault at a feministic reply seemed to backfire when she was immediately flung online for seemingly slut-shaming Kardashian. Kim replied to Chloe Moretz with a classily immature Kardashian tone that one plainly cannot compete with, tweeting,” Let’s all welcome @ ChloeGMoretz to quaver, since no one were aware that she is. Your nylon shield is charming boo .” Not simply did Kim hurl the hypocrisy of the tweet( considering Moretz recent NUDE Nylon periodical cover. Oh sorry, technically I guess she has a cardigan wrap over her shoulders because I know that’s always how I rock my favorite cardigan) but she also insinuated that Chloe Grace Moretz isn’t exactly a household name, to put it gently. In other words, she’s a hypocrite AND a nobody. One can’t deny that Kim can hold her own. Advertisement div > div > Khloe Kardashian vs. Amy Schumer div > via: Getty Images In her SNL monologue, Amy Schumer cracked pranks at Khloe Kardashian’s recent weight loss. We used to have Khloe, you are familiar? Khloe was ours, right? But then Khloe, she lost half their own bodies heavines. She lost a Kendall . em> And considering all the flack Kardashians get for not inevitably being the most culturally persuasive home, Khloe Kardashian’s comments Schumer’s oration were impressively astute. During an impression on The Howard Stern Show , Kardashian pointed out just how sanctimonious Amy Schumer’s comments certainly were. I was more disrupt that someone claims they’re like a girl’s girl and that they’re all about girls empowerment, and then she says that I’m not relatable because I’m not fat anymore … I’m proud, I’ve worked for three [ email kept ] *% ing years to do this. Schumer, who is also commonly criticized for her value, retrospectively seemed to see the double standard she was continuing in her harangue as she promptly apologized to Khloe and agreed that all women, solid and scrawny alike, should lift each other up. Advertisement div > div > Justin Bieber vs. Orlando Bloom div > via: https :// www.gettyimages.com Orlando Bloom and Justin Bieber have a long and even violent biography that revolves around Blooms ex-wife, model Miranda Kerr. It is believed that Justin Bieber made a comment to Bloom at a nightclub that somehow alleged that he and Kerr had been intimate during her marriage to Bloom. As you can imagine, thoughts spiraled downward from there and ended with many gales being thrown, although none landed. Justin Bieber continued to throw punches on Twitter after the physical showdown had ended by affixing an image of Miranda Kerr and soon after, another image of Orlando Bloom apparently visibly psychological over the exchange. Advertisement div > div > Rihanna vs. Ciara div > via: Getty Images On Fashion Police , em> Singer Ciara claimed that Rihanna “wasn’t the nicest” when meeting her in the past. In response to this apparently unsolicited throw, Rihanna tweeted back with a vengeance. My bad Ci, did I 4get to gratuity u ? em> Daaaamn , now that is harsh. And kind of demonstrates Ciara’s comment may not have been that unwarranted after all but it doesn’t seem like Rhianna really is all that concerned with being “the nicest,” anyway. Advertisement div > div > Brooke Shields vs. Tom Cruise div > via: Getty Images In her memoir, Down Came the Rain , Brooke Shields endorsed the use of antidepressants to analyse postpartum recession but Tom Cruise made it clear that he was not in agreeance with Brooke on the issue. In an interview with the Today display, Cruise announced Sheilds ” reckless” for promoting antidepressants without” telling beings the risks .” Brooke responded with what is perhaps the classiest organize of clapping back ever. She wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in which she writes,” I’m going to take a wild guess and say that Mr. Cruise has never suffering from postpartum sadnes .” Cruise was left with no choice but to apologize, which he did, and even departed as far as to invite Shields to his and Kaie Holmes’ upcoming bridal, to which Brooke accepted. Awkward. Advertisement div > div > Nicki Minaj vs. Miley Cyrus div > via: Getty Images The fighting paroles at the 2015 VMA’s between the two celebs seemed to have stanch from Miley’s Halloween costume that year … which was ” Nicki Minaj .” Apparently, Minaj was also upset over comments Cyrus had made about Minaj’s reaction to not being nominated for Video of the Year. On stage at the VMA’s, Nicki slammed out at the former Disney star. And now, back to this bitch that had a lot to say about me the other epoch in the press the other daylight ,” she shelled, before delivering one of pop culture’s standout times of 2015, the soon to be shared and memed,” Miley, what’s good ? em> Eek. Can’t answer we didn’t see that coming. Advertisement div > div > Taylor Swift vs. Kim Kardashian and Kanye West div > via: Getty Images It all started with the odious mic swipe onstage by Kanye at the 2009 MTV Music Awards, heightened with Swift’s response to Kayne via her song pick at the 2010 VMA’s. Cue apology from Kayne and all is seemingly well in the world. Until it’s not. Kanye’s release of Famous reignited the drama and deepened tensions to brand-new levels. I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex Why? I started that bitch famous I realized that bitch prominent Taylor Swift was not delighted, to say the least. Swift claimed never to have approved the offensive texts and addressed their misogynistic feeling in her adoption lecture for recording of the year at the Grammys, telling young women never to let anyone to take ascribe for their success. While Kim and Kanye attempted to claim that Taylor did approve the words by exhausting sound recordings of conversations with Swift made by the couple without Swift’s knowledge, the whole shady proposal culminated up backfiring when the strip was outed as being edited. Swift continued to call out Kanye and Kim the best way she knew how, through her music. Her album, Reputation , em> were considered to be riddled with hurls of Kanye West and we can’t say we accuse her. This neverending feud takes the cake for most drawn-out celeb drama to date. Advertisement div > div > And while acts seem to have rectified down for the moment … b> div > You exactly never know when the drama will show itself next. Share this with the spectacular people in your life! Advertisement Read more: http :// twentytwowords.com/ the-craziest-celebrity-feuds-of-all-time / http://dailybuzznetwork.com/index.php/2018/07/25/19-feuds-that-prove-no-one-does-drama-better-than-celebrities/

[lucyariablog]

How to Develop and Grow a Successful Podcast

Robert Rose and I just completed four years and over 200 episodes of our podcast, This Old Marketing. While far from the most successful marketing podcast on the planet, our one hour of weekly shenanigans has done fairly well.

Since we launched in November 2013, the podcast has been downloaded nearly 2 million times from listeners in 200 countries, while generating approximately a half-million dollars in direct revenue in sponsorship support.

But the best part is what we know about our listeners. Those marketers who regularly listen to This Old Marketing are CMI’s true fans … they are more likely to come to Content Marketing World, attend one of our master classes, purchase training, attend our webinars, engage in our content, and talk about us on social media.

At our recent master class in Washington, D.C., one of the attendees asked me to write an article about creating a successful podcast. And so, Mike, here you go.

The podcast should not be first

This Old Marketing was successful from Episode 1 because we already had an audience of over 75,000 email subscribers who opted to receive CMI content. Once we notified this audience that a podcast was available, a good percentage listened to it.

Now, I’m not saying you can’t be successful by launching a podcast first. John Lee Dumas was incredibly successful with his Entrepreneur On Fire podcast. Pat Flynn also accomplished this feat. But it’s rare.

Most successful podcasts started with an audience already in place. Just look at the ones you listen to and do your research. They probably started with a blog or a video series, or maybe a network or print magazine, or the podcaster was a published author with a following. If I were starting a podcast today, I would work for 12 months to build a solid list of email subscribers first, and THEN diversify the platform with the podcast.

#Podcast Tip: Work for 12 months to build a list of email subscribers then launch the podcast. @JoePulizzi Click To Tweet

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Identify the content gap in the marketplace

This Old Marketing started with a simple phone conversation between Robert and me. We chatted for over an hour, ranting and raving about the news of the day.

#ThisOldMarketing podcast originated after a phone conversation the creators wished they recorded. @JoePulizzi Click To Tweet

At the end of the conversation, we lamented that we didn’t record it.

The next day we talked seriously about the fact that no resource in the industry regularly covered the news around content marketing. Sure, Adweek, Ad Age, Digiday, and others covered it on occasion, but no resource took all the content marketing news from all the sources and distilled it for an audience.

After talking to the staff about it and doing more due diligence, we had enough data to tell us a podcast could be successful if we executed it correctly and delivered consistently.

We were lucky to identify a gap that was truly needed in the marketplace. If five or more competitors already were vying for that space, we probably would have passed on the opportunity or tilted in a different direction.

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Format and frequency

In the marketing industry, most podcast formats revolve around one host with a new guest every week. We wanted to do something different. Plus, we didn’t think we could accomplish our goal of delivering the most important news each week with variable guests.

Add to that, we wanted to make sure CMI’s point of view on content marketing was delivered consistently each episode. It made sense that Robert and I serve as co-hosts with a no-guest format.

And, just like any news program, we wanted a consistent format for the show. We believed that ESPN’s PTI (Pardon the Interruption) format, where the two hosts bicker over the news of the day, worked best for Robert and me. We thought it would be entertaining, plus the format would make sure we could cover multiple news stories in one show.

One of the podcast’s goals was to make sure that the audience knew content marketing had been around for a long time, and we needed to learn from these older case studies. That’s where the idea of “This Old Marketing” came from. Every week we would include one “older” content marketing case study.

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<p><strong>Please include attribution to contentmarketinginstitute.com with this graphic.</strong></p><br /><br /> <p><a href=’http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2016/07/history-content-marketing/’><img src=’http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/History-of-Content-Marketing-Infographic-2016_FINAL.png’ alt=’History of Content Marketing 2016′ width=’792px’ border=’0′ /></a></p><br /><br /> <p>

Although we’ve edited the format on occasion, it hasn’t changed much from the first episode.

Opening thought (from Robert)

News of the day (generally three to five stories)

Rants and raves (something each of us loved or hated from the week)

This Old Marketing example of the week

Initially the podcasts lasted around 45 minutes. Over the first few months, we added more to the introductions and more news coverage to go for 60 minutes every week.

As for the consistency, we didn’t feel we could be great by delivering a daily podcast. We simply couldn’t make the time with our travel schedules and other assignments. Plus, there wasn’t enough content marketing news for a daily show, and we were certain our audience couldn’t handle us on a daily basis.

We settled on a weekly schedule, delivering every Monday night via iTunes and Sticher.com.

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Production

Robert and I quickly worked out who would do what for the show. He managed the content for the program. He created an Evernote email address where we would send all news stories and then select the stories for the show.

Later, as we gained popularity, listeners began to send stories and This Old Marketing examples through a Twitter hashtag (#ThisOldMarketing) and directly through email. We asked for this at the end of every show. Ian’s Maxwell House Haggadah example was used in Episode 209.

@JoePulizzi @Robert_Rose My girlfriend’s family has been using the Maxwell House Haggadah for 30+ years! FANTASTIC read: https://t.co/1sEFfu7p52 #thisoldmarketing

— Ian Faison (@ianfaison) November 15, 2017

Robert also put together the introduction. At first, he read the introduction as we recorded the podcast, but, after about 100 episodes, Robert started to pre-record these five-minute introductions, adding music and clips. Frankly, the introductions might be the best part of the show.

All in all, Robert spends about two to four hours producing his part of each episode.

I handled the post-production. Robert recorded directly to his laptop wherever he was in the world, while I did the same. We both used professional microphones, which is about the most important thing you can do. I use an Audio-Technica AT2020USB and cannot recommend it highly enough. It plugs directly into the computer and can be taken anywhere (I travel a lot with it, often recording from hotel rooms). My recommendation is not to spend time building a studio and just find a quiet room and get a great microphone.

#Podcast Tip: Forgo building a studio. Find a quiet room & a great mic like @USAudioTechnica. @JoePulizzi Click To Tweet

While Robert uses GarageBand (Mac user), I use Audacity for PC. Audacity is a free and easy-to-use program. Robert and I talk via Skype to record the show, but we record our individual tracks separately.

Once completed, Robert sends me his MP3 file and I merge the two in Audacity. It’s really easy – just import the MP3 file into Audacity and make sure it’s synced. I almost never need to adjust the timing since we use a vocal countdown to hit record for each episode.

After the episode is recorded, I paste each of our files into the template (that includes the up-front and back-end music), save the file, and then export the file as a WAV file.

I take the WAV file of the episode and run it through another free program called Levalator. This makes sure that all the audio levels are even so Robert isn’t louder than me or vice versa.

Use a free tool like @levelator to make sure all audio levels are even, says @JoePulizzi. #ThisOldMarketing Click To Tweet

Then I import the WAV.OUTPUT file into Audacity, add Robert’s new intro and output as a final MP3 file. The process takes 60 to 90 minutes.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 3 Hidden Lessons Behind Top Podcasts to Help Yours Stand Out

Distribution and integration

Once the podcast’s MP3 file is complete, it is published using Liberated Syndication (Libsyn). In this program, we add tags such as the episode title and metatags, and then publish on iTunes and Stitcher.com. (We later added distribution on Soundcloud and Google Play, but this needs to be done separately.) Libsyn starts at about $10 per month, depending on usage.

Libsyn also provides the download stats and a dashboard, much like you find in Google Analytics (iTunes doesn’t provide any data).

From there, I notify the editorial team, so it can prepare the show notes for publishing on the CMI blog. We decided that Saturdays would be a good time to distribute the show notes because that gives the editorial team time to construct the textual content, verify the links and images, and allow for uploading and approving the content into our WordPress platform.

Publish your #podcast show notes on your blog for extra promotion, says @JoePulizzi. #ThisOldMarketing Click To Tweet

We found approximately half our audience subscribes to our podcast in iTunes and Stitcher. The other half waits until Saturday when the show posts on the CMI site. About half our overall audience subscribes to CMI’s daily email, which promotes the show notes on Saturday.

Summary

While there is never one way to execute a successful content initiative, I believe our success was tied to the following factors:

CMI had a fan base of followers who were open to checking out the initial podcast. It would have been much more challenging to build an audience from scratch.

Finding a content gap where we could offer something truly differentiated was critical. The news coverage worked. We were able to save our audience time every week and told them what we thought was the most important news of the week.

Audio quality is critical. Spend the money and get a microphone that emits a professional sound. Don’t skimp here.

Integrating the podcast into our weekly articles and email newsletter was essential for success. The podcast shouldn’t sit outside your other content marketing efforts. Find a way to weave in the content to everything you do.

For other great resources on how to start a podcast, check out this post from Pat Flynn and this amazing resource from John Lee Dumas. Good luck!

Please note: All tools included in our blog posts are suggested by authors, not the CMI editorial team. No one post can provide all relevant tools in the space. Feel free to include additional tools in the comments (from your company or ones that you have used).

Want to be in the loop of CMI’s new content and activities? Subscribe to the daily email or weekly digest recapping the highlights from the blog and exclusive email-only content. 

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

  The post How to Develop and Grow a Successful Podcast appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/11/develop-grow-podcast/

[newstfionline]

Ranks of Political Prisoners Grow as Democracy Ebbs in Venezuela

By Nicholas Casey and Ana Vanessa Herrero, NY Times, March 31, 2017

For Braulio Jatar, it was the biggest scoop in years: Venezuela’s president was being chased by a crowd screaming of hunger, banging on pots and pans.

The photos and video of President Nicolás Maduro soon appeared on Mr. Jatar’s news site, Reporte Confidencial, and spread throughout the nation. The mob cornering Mr. Maduro was a shock in Venezuela--anger in food lines and even riots were a familiar sight, but no one had ever ambushed the president that way.

Before he went to bed, Mr. Jatar fired off a series of Twitter messages, some alluding to witness testimony he would soon broadcast on his 9 a.m. radio show. But he never got the chance. He now sits locked in a jail cell, a political prisoner, rights activists say.

Venezuela this week took its biggest plunge yet toward the one-man rule of Mr. Maduro as his loyalists on the Supreme Court gutted the country’s opposition-controlled legislature, seizing the powers of the only body seen as a counter to the president’s growing authority.

But the move was just part of a slide from democracy that has been gaining steady momentum in the country over the past year--seen starkly in prison cells where the ranks of political prisoners are growing. Those cells are filled with well-known opponents of Mr. Maduro, like a former mayor of a wealthy section of Caracas who was sentenced to more than 13 years on charges of inciting violence; academics who have spoken out; and journalists like Mr. Jatar, whose family says he was simply doing his job when he was detained in September.

At least 114 political prisoners are behind bars in Venezuela, according to Penal Forum, a human rights organization that tracks political arrests in the country, a number that rose from 89 a year ago. The group says that since Mr. Maduro took power in 2013, the government has arrested 6,893 people and jailed 433 for political reasons.

“The level of repression has risen to a brutal level,” said Alfredo Romero, who heads the group. “The rise has come from the unpopularity of Maduro.”

The situation has become urgent for Venezuela’s neighbors, 14 of whom wrote a rare joint statement last week calling on Venezuela to release the prisoners as a step toward restoring democratic norms.

This week diplomats from the region met at the Organization of American States, a regional diplomacy group, to discuss steps to possibly expel the country from the group because of its political prisoners, among other accusations of violations of the bloc’s democratic charter.

President Trump has also weighed in. In February, he posted on Twitter a photograph of himself and other officials in the Oval Office with Lilian Tintori, an opposition activist whose husband, Leopoldo López, was in jail.

Mr. Trump wrote that Mr. López, a former mayor of Caracas, should be released immediately.

The taking of political prisoners is not new in Venezuela; it is the numbers that have grown under Mr. Maduro, human rights groups say. His predecessor, Hugo Chávez, jailed opponents, including a judge who had opposed him. But analysts say Mr. Chávez more often avoided dissent by channeling the country’s oil revenues, at times more than $100 a barrel, into social programs that bolstered his popularity.

Mr. Maduro, however, has been faced with falling oil prices and years of economic mismanagement, which have led to shortages of food and basic medicines. Since October, Venezuela’s currency, the bolívar, has been in free fall, with the black-market dollar rising against it by 350 percent at its height, putting food even further out of reach and sinking the president’s popularity.

These conditions led to the protests against Mr. Maduro on Margarita Island, where Mr. Jatar, the journalist, was arrested.

His publication, Reporte Confidencial, had a long history of chronicling the ups and downs of the island--which is off Venezuela’s eastern coast--beginning as a weekly leaflet in 2006. It later expanded online, where it continued to operate on a shoestring budget and with a small staff. It became known for its investigations, including of improper land use by a judge and one about a state governor linked to a corruption scheme related to subsidized food.

“If no one else would publish it, Reporte Confidencial would put it out,” said Yusnelly Villalobos, Mr. Jatar’s assistant.

Mr. Jatar’s wife, Silvia Martínez, said he was once threatened by the authorities when he sent reporters to cover antigovernment protests in 2014. The police raided their home and office, leaving with computer equipment.

But that was no preparation for what would happen after the protesters’ harassment of Mr. Maduro that night in September.

The protest, which was soon known as news spread online by its hashtag, “#cacerolazo,” or the “great pot banging,” was a deep embarrassment for Mr. Maduro. That week the opposition had amassed an estimated one million people in Caracas to protest food shortages and demand his ouster. The president had flown to Margarita Island for what was expected to be a positive reception in an area where he and Mr. Chávez had both won in elections.

After inaugurating a public housing complex, Mr. Maduro stopped his motorcade in the town of Villa Rosa, to walk among a crowd of what he thought were well-wishers. Instead they chased him through the streets.

The next morning Mr. Jatar set off to a radio show, which he also ran, where he planned to continue his coverage of the night’s protest.

“I turned on the dial to listen to him,” Ms. Martínez said. But he never showed up at the station; he had been arrested by Venezuelan intelligence agents.

In the next days, 30 more people were arrested in house-by-house roundups, according to Penal Forum. They were interrogated before being let go, the group said.

But Mr. Jatar was not released. He sits in a jail cell in the state of Nueva Esparta on money-laundering charges involving $25,000, which the authorities say they found in his car. Ms. Martínez says that the money was planted, and that Mr. Jatar would have never left such a large amount of money where it might have easily been stolen.

“We have no idea who ordered his detention,” Ms. Martinez said.

José Miguel Vivanco, the director of Human Rights Watch, which has also investigated the case, said his group concluded that the charges were fabricated in an effort to suppress journalists. “Calling for his release is not just about letting another political prisoner out of jail,” he said. “It’s about protecting free speech.”

The government ombudsman did not respond to a request for comment on Mr. Jatar or other prisoners. Venezuela’s military and prosecutor’s office also did not respond to a written request for comment.

Since Mr. Jatar’s arrest, the government has intensified its focus on arresting those it deems subversive. In early January, Mr. Maduro put Tareck El Aissami, the newly appointed vice president, in charge of what he called the “anticoup squad,” a group aimed at punishing those plotting treason or other crimes against the state.

On Jan. 12, Irwing Roca, a political activist, was leaving a meeting with Roniel Farias, a city councilman in Ciudad Bolívar, in the country’s eastern interior. Mr. Roca said that a black car was waiting outside for them, and that intelligence agents ordered them inside after taking their telephones.

“At no moment did they say why they had taken us,” Mr. Roca said.

Mr. Roca said he was held by the agents for three days without food or water. Mr. Farias was released on March 14, with no explanation.

The day before Mr. Roca and Mr. Farias were taken, Gilber Caro, a deputy legislator in the National Assembly for Voluntad Popular, an opposition party, was making his way down a highway outside of Caracas when his car was stopped by Venezuelan intelligence agents, his family said.

Yeidi Caro, his sister, first learned of the news when a friend called to mistakenly say he was kidnapped. Mr. Caro initially thought he had been taken by criminals demanding a ransom. Ms. Caro saw the news of his arrest being broadcast. “I turned on the television and I saw that the government had him,” she said.

The Venezuelan authorities said that they had found the legislator hiding an assault rifle and money to be used for attacks against the government.