#it unfortunately links to my other accounts and it's the one social media thing i don't want connected to the rest

[thetreetopinn]

Sources for Somerton's Plagiarism from Hbomberguy's Video (as much as I could get)

I went back through Harry's video, focused entirely on the sources James Somerton pulled from in the hopes of creating as much of a comprehensive list as I could--though my Google-Fu is not very strong. I did however find something I thought was forever lost and that made me very happy--specifically the magazine Midlands Zone containing the column by Steven Spinks that Harry poignantly used as an illustration of gay erasure... while Somerton uses it to sound like HE is waxing remorseful about the very subject.

This is not a complete list, I'm sure. For one thing, I was only able to attempt to pull sources that Harry himself mentioned in the video. Surely there's so very much more out there. I expect there to be a great deal more internet archeology to unearth just how much writing and culture Somerton has stolen like he's the British Museum of Natural History but for gay people.

- - - - -

Harry's list of mentioned youtubers:

Alexander Avila - https://www.youtube.com/@alexander_avila Matt Baume - https://www.youtube.com/@MattBaume Khadija Mbowe - https://www.youtube.com/@KhadijaMbowe Lady Emily - https://www.youtube.com/@LadyEmilyPresents Shanspeare - https://www.youtube.com/@Shanspeare RickiHirsch - https://www.youtube.com/@RickiHirsch VerilyBitchie - https://www.youtube.com/@verilybitchie

Harry created a convenient playlist of videos by these and other people he wants to bring to everyone's attention.

Please give them your support.

- - - - -

Midlands Zone Magazine - Column by Steven Spinks

After a great deal of searching, I found an archive of the "Midlands Zone" magazine, where you can read through past issues dating all the way back to February 2014. I have also found the issue from which Somerton took Spinks' poignant discussion of gay erasure: Overall archive Specific Issue - Pages 16-17

It will not allow you to download it, but you can read it exactly as it appeared in print form.

- - - - -

My best effort to find the exact book or article Somerton lifted from to be able to get attention to the original writers

Tinker Bells and Evil Queens By Sean Griffin

The Celluloid Closet By Vito Russo Wikipedia article about the book Wikipedia article about the documentary My weak google-fu could not find where you can access the book or documentary. Check your local municipal or university library for book or documentary, or if you know a good source for one or both, please reblog with it added

Camp and the Gay Sensibility By Jack Babuscio

The Groundbreaking Queerness of Disney's Mulan By Jes Tom Personal site with links to social media accounts

Why Rebel Without a Cause was a milestone for gay rights By Peter Howell

Why "The Craft" is still the best Halloween coming out movie By Andrew Park

Opinion: From facehuggers to phallic tails, is 'Alien' one of the queerest films ever? By Dani Leever

Women and Queerness in Horror: Jennifer's Body By Zoe Fortier

[Pride 2019] We Have Such Sights to Show You: Hellraiser and the Spectrum of Queerness By Alejandra Gonzalez

Revealing the Hellbound Heart of Clive Barker's 'Hellraiser' By Colin Arason

Queering James Cameron's Aliens (1986) By Bart Bishop

Demeter and Persephone in space: transformation, femininity, and myth in the 'Alien' films By David Greven

Fears of a millennial masculinity: Scream's queer killers By David Greven (Scholarly site, unable to access original work, offers a way to request a full copy of the text in PDF)

Queer Subtext in Stephen King's It - Part 1: 'Reddie' Character Analysis By Rachel Brands Rachel is the very unfortunate lady who found out she was being stolen from because she supported Somerton through Patreon and saw one of his videos early with her writing--lacking any form of citation or credit

How 'It: Chapter Two' Leaves Richie Tozier Behind By Joelle Monique

When Horror Becomes Strength: Queer Armor in Stephen King's 'IT' By Alex London

Why Queer People Love Witchcraft By Amanda Kohr

'The Favourite' Queers The Past And The Present By Giorgi Plys-Garzotto

(Wuko) Crush (Mako x Wu) By MoonFlower on YouTube

5 Terrible Movies With Awesome Hidden Meanings By J.F. Sargent

The Radicalization of Sexuality: The Queer Casae of Jeffrey Dahmer By Ian Barnard

Netflix's 'Dahmer' backlash highlights ethical issues in the platform's obsession with true crime By Shivani Dubey

The Possible Disturbing Dissonance Between Hajime Isayama's Beliefs and Attack on Titan's Themes Original Article by "Seldom Musings" (Author has made all posts not related to Attack On Titan private and has retired from the blog)

Everyone Loves Attack on Titan. So Why Does Everyone Hate Attack on Titan? By Gita Jackson

- - - - -

The following people are otherwise named in the video. There are no direct citations of articles or books by them in said video. I am unable to guarantee that I have identified the correct individual.

Darren Elliott-Smith Michaela Barton David Church Claire Sisco King Amanda Howell Jessica Roy

- - - - -

Telos announced and cancelled a film likely based on this book: The Final Girl Support Group - By Grady Hendrix

- - - - -

I refrained from including certain sources.

First off only focusing on Somerton's work.

Secondly not including anything that might be visible enough to not require amplifying their voice (I cannot speak for all of those I have found links to, but journalism is frequently a thankless job).

Thirdly any source that is of a nature that is antithetical to the very existence of the queer community, such as the right-leaning source that didn't make it into Somerton's video, but Harry was able to identify as a source he had considered using.

If you feel I have missed a mentioned source--or you know of a source from material that was not covered in Harry's video--please do not hesitate to reblog with added details.

- - - - -

Please share this information far and wide, and please add to it if you find more material that can be positively identified and linked to the creator/writer.

[blackphillipdarling]

Signs to tell if the person in your inbox, asking you to reblog a post with a link asking people to donate money for their sick pet or kid, is a scam

Before we start, a disclaimer that this is NOT a solid confirmation that this person must be a scammer. The intention of this is for you to be wary and always check before donating or rebloging this type of post.

Without further ado and from firsthand experience, here are the red flags:

The person in your inbox asking you to reblog a post with their donation link will always ask you NOT to publish the ask they sent you (but to only reblog their post), and their reasoning would always be something along the line of “I don’t want people to think I pressured you into doing it🥺”

But if you go to the person’s profile with their post asking for donation, 100% of the time, you’ll find that the account has only just been created days ago. — How can you tell this? Easy. You can literally scroll down to the first ever post of their blog in less than 10 seconds.

The thing these scammers have in common is that they will create a new blog and they WILL reblog some general posts, such as fandom posts, to make their blogs look legit. They will have legit profile pictures so they don’t look like bots. But it will always be a newly created blog with several reblogs (mostly about fandoms, because they know rebloging fandom posts will make them look more legit than if they were to reblog some suggestive photos of some women, since the latter will make them look like p0rn bots), and the only original post they made is that post asking for donation.

Move on to the information they provided about their sick pet or kid. They will provide thorough and detailed information to make it look legit. But the thing is that they could just take that from google or steal that information from someone who actually needed the donation. There is never a way to tell if your money will go directly to help save the pet or the kid. My advice is to google the patient’s name and see how old the case is, if the case of this patient with this name and this information has been used to ask for donation by other people before, etc.

The photo of the patient they gave can also help you determine if it’s legit. Save that photo and then use google image search to see if it’s an original photo or if it’s a stolen one that has been used before.

Bonus: the thing these scammers can’t do is provide updates about how the patient’s doing. So it’s only just one post with the link asking you for your money. If it is legit, you should be able to see consistent updates of how this patient is doing or if there’s any change, etc. (I’m not saying it’s a requirement for those whose loved one is in critical care to post updates on social media all the time, I’m simply pointing out that scammers tend to fail to provide any update because they can’t.)

I’ll always encourage donating and helping spread the posts of those who actually are in need, though it’s just so unfortunate that, while there are people who are genuinely struggling, there are a lot of scammers out there looking for an opportunity to take advantage of people’s kindness and using sick pet or kid as a way to scam people and making it more difficult for people who really need help to be taken seriously.

Last but not least, fuck those scammers. Stay safe y’all.

[qqueenofhades]

Hello! This is kind of a weird ask, I'm sorry to bother you, but seeing as you're a very intelligent studied historian that I deeply respect, I was hoping you could offer some advice? Or like, things i could read? Lately, i feel like my critical thinking skills are emaciated and its scaring the shit out of me. I feel very slow and like I'm constantly missing important info in relation to news/history/social activism stuff. Thats so vague, sorry, but like any tips on how i can do better?

Aha, thank you. There was recently a good critical-thinking infograph on my dash, so obviously I thought I remembered who reblogged it and checked their blog, it wasn't them, thought it was someone else, checked their blog, it also wasn't them, and now I can't find it to link to. Alas. But I will try to sum up its main points and add a few of my own. I'm glad you're taking the initiative to work on this for yourself, and I will add that while it can seem difficult and overwhelming to sort through the mass of information, especially often-false, deliberately misleading, or otherwise bad information, there are a few tips to help you make some headway, and it's a skill that like any other skill, gets easier with practice. So yes.

The first and most general rule of thumb I would advise is the same thing that IT/computer people tell you about scam emails. If something is written in a way that induces urgency, panic, the feeling that you need to do something RIGHT NOW, or other guilt-tripping or anxiety-inducing language, it is -- to say the least -- questionable. This goes double if it's from anonymous unsourced accounts on social media, is topically or thematically related to a major crisis, or anything else. The intent is to create a panic response in you that overrides your critical faculties, your desire to do some basic Googling or double-checking or independent verification of its claims, and makes you think that you have to SHARE IT WITH EVERYONE NOW or you are personally and morally a bad person. Unfortunately, the world is complicated, issues and responses are complicated, and anyone insisting that there is Only One Solution and it's conveniently the one they're peddling should not be trusted. We used to laugh at parents and grandparents for naively forwarding or responding to obviously scam emails, but now young people are doing the exact same thing by blasting people with completely sourceless social media tweets, clips, and other manipulative BS that is intended to appeal to an emotional gut rather than an intellectual response. When you panic or feel negative emotions (anger, fear, grief, etc) you're more likely to act on something or share questionable information without thinking.

Likewise, you do have basic Internet literacy tools at your disposal. You can just throw a few keywords into Google or Wikipedia and see what comes up. Is any major news organization reporting on this? Is it obviously verifiable as a fake (see the disaster pictures of sharks swimming on highways that get shared after every hurricane)? Can you right-click, perform a reverse image search, and see if this is, for example, a picture from an unrelated war ten years ago instead of an up-to-date image of the current conflict? Especially with the ongoing Israel/Palestine imbroglio, we have people sharing propaganda (particularly Hamas propaganda) BY THE BUCKETLOAD and masquerading it as legitimate news organizations (tip: Quds News Network is literally the Hamas channel). This includes other scuzzy dirtbag-left websites like Grayzone and The Intercept, which often have implicit or explicit links to Russian-funded disinformation campaigns and other demoralizing or disrupting fake news that is deliberately designed to turn young left-leaning Westerners against the Democrats and other liberal political parties, which enables the electoral victory of the fascist far-right and feeds Putin's geopolitical and military aims. Likewise, half of our problems would be solved if tankies weren't so eager to gulp down and propagate anything "anti-Western" and thus amplify the Russian disinformation machine in a way even the Russians themselves sometimes struggle to do, but yeah. That relates to both Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine.

Basically: TikTok, Twitter/X, Tumblr itself, and other platforms are absolutely RIFE with misinformation, and this is due partly to ownership (the Chinese government and Elon Fucking Musk have literally no goddamn reason whatsoever to build an unbiased algorithm, and have been repeatedly proven to be boosting bullshit that supports their particular worldviews) and partly due to the way in which the young Western left has paralyzed itself into hypocritical moral absolutes and pseudo-revolutionary ideology (which is only against the West itself and doesn't think that the rest of the world has agency to act or think for itself outside the West's influence, They Are Very Smart and Anti-Colonialist!) A lot of "information" in left-leaning social media spaces is therefore tainted by this perspective and often relies on flat-out, brazen, easily disprovable lies (like the popular Twitter account insisting that Biden could literally just overturn the Supreme Court if he really wanted to). Not all misinformation is that easy to spot, but with a severe lack of political, historical, civic, or social education (since it's become so polarized and school districts generally steer away from it or teach the watered-down version for fear of being attacked by Moms for Liberty or similar), it is quickly and easily passed along by people wanting trite and simplistic solutions for complex problems or who think the extent of social justice is posting the Right Opinions on social media.

As I said above, everything in the world is complicated and has multiple factors, different influences, possible solutions, involved actors, and external and internal causes. For the most part, if you're encountering anything that insists there's only one shiningly righteous answer (which conveniently is the one All Good and Moral People support!) and the other side is utterly and even demonically in the wrong, that is something that immediately needs a closer look and healthy skepticism. How was this situation created? Who has an interest in either maintaining the status quo, discouraging any change, or insisting that there's only one way to engage with/think about this issue? Who is being harmed and who is being helped by this rhetoric, including and especially when you yourself are encouraged to immediately spread it without criticism or cross-checking? Does it rely on obvious lies, ideological misinformation, or something designed to make you feel the aforementioned negative emotions? Is it independently corroborated? Where is it sourced from? When you put the author's name into Google, what comes up?

Also, I think it's important to add that as a result, it's simply not possible to distill complicated information into a few bite-sized and easily digestible social media chunks. If something is difficult to understand, that means you probably need to spend more time reading about it and encountering diverse perspectives, and that is research and work that has to take place primarily not on social media. You can ask for help and resources (such as you're doing right now, which I think is great!), but you can't use it as your chief or only source of information. You can and should obviously be aware of the limitations and biases of traditional media, but often that has turned into the conspiracy-theory "they never report on what's REALLY GOING ON, the only information you can trust is random anonymous social media accounts managed by God knows who." Traditional media, for better or worse, does have certain evidentiary standards, photographing, sourcing, and verifying requirements, and other ways to confirm that what they're writing about actually has some correspondence with reality. Yes, you need to be skeptical, but you can also trust that some of the initial legwork of verification has been done for you, and you can then move to more nuanced review, such as wording, presentation of perspective, who they're interviewing, any journalistic assumptions, any organizational shortcomings, etc.

Once again: there is a shit-ton of stuff out there, it is hard to instinctively know or understand how to engage with it, and it's okay if you don't automatically "get" everything you read. That's where the principle of actually taking the time to be informed comes in, and why you have to firmly divorce yourself from the notion that being socially aware or informed means just instantly posting or sharing on social media about the crisis of the week, especially if you didn't know anything about it beforehand and are just relying on the Leftist Groupthink to tell you how you should be reacting. Because things are complicated and dangerous, they take more effort to unpick than just instantly sharing a meme or random Twitter video or whatever. If you do in fact want to talk about these things constructively, and not just because you feel like you're peer-pressured into doing so and performing the Correct Opinions, then you will in fact need to spend non-social-media time and effort in learning about them.

If you're at a university, there are often subject catalogues, reference librarians, and other built-in tools that are there for you to use and which you SHOULD use (that's your tuition money, after all). That can help you identify trustworthy information sources and research best practices, and as you do that more often, it will help you have more of a feel for things when you encounter them in the wild. It's not easy at first, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes more so, and will make you more confident in your own judgments, beliefs, and values. That way when you encounter something that you KNOW is wrong, you won't be automatically pressured to share it just to fit in, because you will be able to tell yourself what the problems are.

Good luck!

[starstruckbyacomet]

Goodbye for Now

Almost 2 months ago I posted a list of possible hurdles that Oliver had warned us about (link):

It's possibly because of something from Tommy's past (we might get a Tommy Begins of some sort).

It possibly would happen through episodes 8x05 and 8x06.

Buck will go to Bobby, Maddie, and Eddie for support during that period.

Buck might find out about Tommy's past (being a racist and mysoginist a-hole) and couldn't accept it, or

Tommy might meet Carla. Carla might tell Buck that Tommy had lied to Abby and used her as a beard in the past. Abby was hurt badly because of it, and Buck couldn't accept it.

Buck might break up with Tommy.

Buck might try to date another man or a woman (if they want to emphasize that Buck is bisexual, not gay).

When I made the above list, I half-jokingly wrote down the worst posssibilities I could think of. The purpose of my post back then is to prepare other Tevan shippers who at the time had doubt about the relationship. I told them that grown-up relationships had all sorts of challenges, including break-ups. I also told them to watch Disney Princess movies if they couldn't handle it.

Who knew that almost 2 months later I have to swallow my own pills?

As contradictive as it sounds, I'm not happy that my predictions come true, including the possibility of Buck dating men & women again (prediction #7) which could happen based on interview with Oliver Stark (link)

Will Buck and Tommy make up?

Negative sign:

There are two interviews with Lou which I still refused to read, because the writers used to be Buddie baiters. But according to fans who have read it, the break up seems final.

Positive signs:

A)) 9-1-1 official Instagram account wouldn't follow Lou in the first place if he wouldn't stay for long term. Last time I check, 9-1-1 account still following Lou.

B)) Things that I wrote in my previous post still stand (link).

Tim and Oliver has said they wanted Buck to get out of the relationship hamster wheel and have a steady meaningful one instead.

Unlike Abby, whom they broke up with Buck because Tim had difficulties in writing her interaction with other 118 family members, Tommy has known most of the 118 family even before Buck does. There is no difficulty in making scripts where Tommy interacts with other 118 members without Buck's presence.

And the most important reason is: THE RATING IS HIGH when Tevan relationship is going strong.

My conclusion: There are 2 options:

The break-up is only temporary, to spice things up. Unfortunately, the timing is really bad because it is aired after the fuck-up US election result 🤦.

Tommy is moving to the new 9-1-1 spin-off, which probably located in Hawaii (link). If this happens, the break-up might be permanent, but it will be good for Lou's career.

What's next?

Although I think Tommy will come back in the 9-1-1 universe, I'm still upset. The 2nd term of Trump and Tevan's break-up happened within the same week! WTF??? I refuse to deal with both at the same time.

This is a list of what I will and will not do, and what I've done:

I will not harrass Tim Minear, Oliver Stark, or even the show on social media. I will not post my disappointment on unrelated social media contents. We have experienced how annoying it was when toxic Buddie fans did it. I refuse to do the same. I suggest other Tevan fans too. We are better than that.

I have unfollowed all 9-1-1 related social media accounts, both official and not. Yes, it is included 911bts and 911cast Tumblr accounts. I think this is a healthy way to voice my disappointment and to maintain my mental health.

I will stop watching the show until Tommy is (or, is officially announced to be) back on screen. The only exception will be when they show Bathena's new house for the first time, because I've been waiting to see it. Other than that, just no. Not even when Eddie reunites with Chris, if that happens before Tommy is back on screen. This step might even save me a few bucks, actually 😅.

I will stop engaging with 9-1-1 related contents on the internet. I will not read any articles about the show. I will not comment, post, reblog or do anything with contents about 9-1-1 on the internet.

I will stop reading 9-1-1 fics because I never comfortable following ships which are against canon. That's why I don't ship Buddie. And now that Tevan broke-up, I cannot engage with AUs where they are still together.

If you think Tevan will make up, why do you quit the show? Because:

I consume entertainment contents to be entertained, not to be depressed. I used to skip sad chapters on novels, and only read them when I'm ready. Buck without Tommy is a sad chapter for me, so I skip it.

This is my way to voice my disappointment in a healthy way. Things that matter the most for the show are rating/viewership and rating/viewership-related metrics. My actions may not have significant impacts to the show, but I am satisfied, nonetheless. Especially, after Oliver's comment that he has actively asked Tim Minear to 'Let Buck F–k' men and women (link). His ask is not only a regression to slutty Buck 1.0 (which we thought he has grown out of), but also strengthening the stereotype that bisexual people are easy to fuck around. A stereotype that a lot of bisexual people want to shred.

Tim Minear and Oliver Stark have the right to make the story as they see fit. This show is not customed to my preference. I'm very much aware of that. This is a "love it or leave it" product. So, I choose to leave it. For now.

To my followers: As I mentioned in my account, you can unfollow me. I use Tumblr as a scrapbook, not to gain followers. I was actually surprised and felt a bit guilty when people start following me, because I don't create arts, gifs, or fics. So, feel free to unfollow me. No hard feeling.

To other Tevan shippers: I know this is beyond disappointing, but please keep your online behavior in check. Please keep in mind that if you post your disapointment in social media, toxic Buddie shippers will eat you alive. Even if you don't, Buddie shippers will be gloating all over the internet. If you can't handle it, I suggest to forgo any interactions in 9-1-1 social media, at least temporarily.

Special thanks to my fellow Tevan fans and the lovely Buddietommy multishippers whom I've met during this journey. I hope we'll meet again. What a roller-coaster ride.

Now, back to Disney Princess movies... 😂

[myangelhaven]

These are my recommendations of HYUNJIN fics! It will be updated once in a while for new stories I have read. Hopefully the links work (lemme know if it doesn't)

Credits to the authors!! All information written is taken from the authors' post and has not been modified. Reminder that some fics are NOT for minors, so please read the key and avoid 18+ contents.

HAPPY READING!!

KEY

[❀]: fluff [𖦹]: humour [𖤓]: angst [☄]: sad [☾]:smut [⟡]:smau [✮]: my favs

˖⁺‧₊˚ ˚₊‧⁺˖✮-------------HYUNJIN-------------���˖⁺‧₊˚ ˚₊‧⁺˖

SERIES

Yes, miss by @scribblemetae [❀][☾][teacherxstudent][camboy][slowburn] ONGOING

It wasn’t your fault, you didn’t know this was going to happen, how were you to know the person behind the videos you used to get off to was none other than your favourite straight A student Hwang Hyunjin. How would you ever look at the boy with thick black glasses properly again?

Ask Mr Loverboy by @cosmic-railwayxo [❀][𖤓][e2l][chf2l][suggestive][rivals][soulmateau][doublelife] ONGOING

Ask Mr Loverboy is a column in the university’s newspaper that gives the students love advice. However, there’s a twist: Mr Loverboy himself has never been in love. He keeps going on dates with a new person every weekend in hopes of finding that spark he always talks about to his readers but so far, his strategy hasn’t been working.

In the search for his soulmate, he stumbles upon you – the person he absolutely cannot stand and is sure he never will. Yet, despite your history, you end up teaching Hyunjin the most valuable lesson of them all. Will he push through and finally find his one and only, or will Hyunjin give up on love forever?

What a complicated question. Too bad he can’t ask Mr Loverboy about it, he could really use his wisdom.

Crush culture by @kyufiber [❀][𖤓][⟡] 44 parts

there are a few rules to follow when you’re drunk, sleep deficit, or dangerously bored: never create fake social media accounts, never use those accounts to incite general chaos and mischief, and never ever lie about your identity, especially if it’s to the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen. unfortunately for him, hyunjin’s broken all three.

Only fools fall for you by @hyunjinspark [❀][𖤓][☾] [⟡][✮✮][fwb][slowburn] 70 parts

you're excited to finally get a new start at university, majoring in the thing you love the most; dancing, and you're positive that absolutely nothing can ruin the quintessential college experience for you.

that is, until you run into your lifelong rival, hwang hyunjin and to make things worse...you can't seem to get rid of him.

Sweet like candy by @staysuki [𖤓] [⟡][✮][e2l][s2l][suggestive] 70 parts

long time rival hwang hyunjin has been the bane of your existence for as long as you can remember. thank god your secret anon textmate always has your back— sweet, caring, and good with words. definitely not like hwang at all.

⠄･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄more to come!⠄･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄

☆-------Hyunjin's masterlist || skz masterlist--------☆

[triviallytrue]

Were there Russian Chaos Agents on tumblr in 2016?

First things first:

Things I got wrong in earlier posts on this:

@ms-disinformation didn't identify these accounts ahead of time, this blog started posting in 2019 and is focused on accounts that are likely to be bot-run

Relatedly, the accounts accused of being Russian state actors were accused of being trolls, not bots - they were almost undoubtedly human-run

Tumblr didn't announce the mass ban of these accounts until several months after they did it - they banned the accounts in fall of 2017 and announced them in March 2018.

What actually happened?

The Internet Research Agency is a Russian company accused of creating fake social media accounts to attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. On March 23, 2018, tumblr posted a list of accounts they claimed were linked to the IRA that they had terminated the previous fall. On November 16, 2018, they posted a second list of accounts given to them by law enforcement of other IRA-related accounts (unrelated to any election interference) that were also terminated.

How did tumblr identify these accounts?

tumblr has been extremely vague about the methodology used to find these accounts, but we do have another source: the Buzzfeed News journalist who wrote about the termination of these accounts back on February 6, 2018 (over a month before tumblr's post) identified them by cross-referencing tumblr accounts with twitter's list of IRA-affiliated accounts, finding similar or identical usernames and profile pictures.

Unfortunately, this only kicks the can further down the road - how did twitter identify these accounts? These sites don't want to reveal their methods, but this study offers some insights into the behavior of these accounts and possible tools used to identify them.

Why should we believe tumblr's narrative?

There are a lot of reasons I'm convinced that tumblr is being honest with us about this, the simplest of which is that they don't have a good reason to lie about this. tumblr nukes accounts all the time without disclosing its reasons - if they wanted to get rid of an arbitrary list of accounts they dislike, they could do that and none of us would know. They deleted these accounts months before posting any explanation at all, and the only backlash they received was in articles like the Buzzfeed News article above slamming them for not talking about the Russian troll problem, instead of accusing them of terminating activists.

It's also not like this is some tactic that tumblr has employed frequently - the list of IRA-affiliated accounts has been untouched since 2018. This was a once-off, not part of any organized strategy to suppress certain types of posters.

Moreover, tumblr users with similar post content were left untouched, including many that reblogged heavily from the IRA accounts - the Buzzfeed News article identifies one such blog (alwaysbewoke) who posted more or less the same type of antiracist, pro-Sanders activism (albeit without the eventual support for Trump) who wasn't deactivated.

It's also worth noting that the IRA is a real company and not a US boogeyman (even if some subsection of liberals use the phrase "Russian bot" as such) - recently, the leader of the Wagner group came forward and confirmed that he founded it and still finances and runs it, and he's relatively direct about the fact that it was used to interfere in US elections:

“Gentlemen, we interfered, we interfere and we will interfere,” Prigozhin said in November, one day before the US midterm elections.

Finally, and most convincingly in my opinion, no one behind any of the over a hundred accounts on the tumblr IRA list or the thousands on the twitter one have come forward in the past six years to claim that they were wrongfully associated with the IRA and banned as a result.

Isn't that fascinating? Can you imagine what a story it would be, if social media sites were not only terminating activists but lying about why they were doing it? Do you think that not a single one of these hundreds of alleged activists thought of calling a sympathetic journalist, showing them their US driver's license, and asking them to a run a story? What about messaging their old mutuals, or making a new account, or finding a federated platform that won't delete them on sight? I can't find a shred of evidence that any of this ever happened, and that's pretty telling.

The funny part is, there's no real evidence that these accounts ever achieved anything, and indeed, reasons to doubt that they did. They operated in preexisting echo chambers and circulated mostly true stories with a specific slant to them, with the occasional dash of outright lies. Certainly, it's hard to argue that they were less reliable or more biased than your average Fox News article. But arguing that they weren't Russian propaganda seems pretty difficult.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

I saw another post on another blog that had a really good point and wanted to share it with everyone here...unfortunately I can't find the comment now!

The anon suggested that perhaps why the wire services may have freaked out about the edits on KP's photo is because of terms and conditions prohibiting agencies from selling post-edited or post-modified images. So someone at the AP or whatever wire service saw the edits and assumed that the usual rules - no selling or purchasing edited photos - applied in this case and overcorrected by issuing the kill notice to rectify their mistake of purchasing an edited photo. And in that panic to correct their "error", no one realized that the photo was sourced from a personal social media account, thus is subject to different rules. More internet chaos and a KP apology later, the photo suddenly gets resurrected and some of the community notes are removed.

It's a good theory, and one that's very plausible. Probably the most plausible explanation of everything that happened.

As to why there was suddenly a resurrection, I'm thinking the lawyers got involved and if the lawyers finally did get pulled in, they probably said either "this is a personal photo accessed on social media, those rules don't apply" (and everyone went "shit-shit-shit") or they talked about the sudden liabilities they're now open to with this precedence of calling out edits that they now have a standard to uphold (and everyone went "shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit"). Again, this is just conjecture. The kneejerking back-and-forth that happened today does seem classically lawyerese to me, though.

A second piece to this, I'm reminded of how KP shares their photos. Which is that the actually aren't selling their photographs. It's an old story from back in 2013, but when KP published the baby George-Kate-William-Lupo photos taken by Michael Middleton, a blogger who wanted to buy the photos for her website contacted Michael or KP to enquire about purchase and usage, and Michael or Michael's people responded that there was no cost for using the photos as long as she properly credited him with the copyright and used them only for a news story. I imagine that's similar to KP's process; if a publication (such as the AP) wants to reproduce a photograph credited to Kate (or William) that has been published on social media, the entity makes a request to the office, and the communications office sends them the source file.

At no point in any of this is there actually any money exchanging hands. I'm pretty confident there's no money being exchanged for KP's personal photographs to be reused, in which case the "we don't buy edited photos" rule is null and void. Different standards apply here. (My confidence comes from the fact that this is part of the "press pact" that Meghan and Harry pushed back against; they wanted to charge copyright and usage fees for their personal photographs rather than make them freely available on request like the then-Cambridges did.)

And then finally, all photographers - amateur and professional alike - edit their images before publishing them or sending them anywhere. What Kate did is no different than what Misan Harriman or Chris Jackson or Samir Hussein do (and have admitted to! Check out those links for their "confessions."). And I suspect that KP's statement where Kate said she had done the editing herself before the photo was posted is what threw the monkey wrench that maybe brought the lawyers in - because if they retract KP's photo on the basis that someone edited it before it was first posted/submitted to the public, then they have to retract thousands and thousands of other photos on the same grounds that someone edited it before it was first posted/submitted to the public. Again, this is all speculation.

At the end of the day, it all seems to be boiling down to one thing: there was a mixup and a miscommunication somewhere. And for me, all the signs point to the cock-up happening on the media's side. The rules/terms and conditions they have in place to use only verified images are good ones to have, but the last 48 hours have made it abundantly clear that there are holes in the rules and gaps in how they vet and verify images they source and distribute.

(Honestly I'm surprised that photographers haven't spoken out in Kate's defense. I'd have thought at least one or two would've said something. I can see why they wouldn't - maybe jobs are on the line or maybe they lose contest/recognition opportunities if they do - but it does strike me as a bit odd.)

(Also, sorry to the anon from earlier this morning to whom I said I probably wasn't going to post on the photo edit drama anymore. Clearly that plan went by the wayside.)

[lemotmo]

She responded 🤣

Q. Ali! Now can we say they're trolling? Please let us call it trolling now!? Holy shit!

Q. I desperately need to hear you try to make this sound professional 🤣🤣🤣. I freaking love him!

Q. Ryan said wah cry more 😂😂

A. Okay I had to watch it several times because I didn't quite believe it on my first watch. For starters it is a genuinely funny video. The part about only introducing him to like 4 people and just calling everyone else extra absolutely took me out. Genius. I don't think he shared it with cruel intentions. I think he honestly thought it was funny and that most of the people who follow him would find it funny. Having said that though I don't think he actually cares if it offends anyone. And he shouldn't care. Things have been uncomfortable and unfortunate for Oliver but what they attempted to do to Ryan was grotesque and indefensible. If anyone has the right to be over their bullshit it's him. Oliver is getting hate from them because he doesn't ship it and doesn't appear to be friendly with Lou. Ryan is getting hate because he's the one Oliver prefers and he plays the character the audience prefers. That's it. That's what they're so upset about and for that reason, and only that reason they tried to assassinate his character.

Everything that we have seen, heard and experienced over the last 3 months would not have happened if his name was Loretta instead of Lou and he was playing a Tammy instead of a Tommy. The entire thing has been endlessly ridiculous and entirely exhausting. If we're this over the entire thing imagine how over it Oliver and Ryan are. He's going to appear in some capacity in season 8. They're going to get to see him for at least a bit. They need to take what they get and let the rest go. He was never going to be treated like or added as a main. It's not our fault they decided to believe proven liars instead of facts directly presented to them. If the cast wants to have a little fun over how stupid the entire situation is, then more power to them. And it was a truly funny video. Voodoo dolls and all 😂

Thank you Nonny for dropping this in my inbox. :)

As for the rest of this post? I agree with all of it. :D

It's a genuinly funny video. He shouldn't be afraid to post it, because some fans might not like it. He is free to post whatever he wants to post.

¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

IMPORTANT! Please don't repost this ask and/or a link that leads straight to my Tumblr account on Twitter or any other social media. Thank you!

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[dangerousartisanwerewolf]

To All Americans doom scrolling Tumblr right now:

First and foremost I am so sorry for all of you guys. You all did your part but hatred seems to have unfortunately won. I am also incredibly disheartened for all of you and for once in my life I honestly don't know what to say (which is odd for me lol).

Just know

That you did your part. You voted and did your part and that's all you can do.

It's not your fault. Period. Not to sound defeatist but one vote will not decide the fate of an entire election

Life will go on and we will keep on living. I know it doesn't seem like it right now but we will keep going and we will keep living our lives.

Things will get better, it maybe doesnt seem like it right now but things will ger better

I have sadly seen many people on here talk about killing themselves or pleading others to stay alive. As sad as that notion is, it is a very real concern for many now.

As many others have mentioned: PLEASE DON'T KILL YOURSELF OR RELAPSE IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM OVER THE ELECTION RESULTS!!!!!!!!! I know it may feel hopeless and like there is nothing else you can do but please don't. I mentioned many things you can do to distract yourself in a previous post if you want to look.

There are many $u1c1d3 hotlines and other mental health resources available you can access. Please do if you feel like you need to

List of hotlines/ help resources to call/talk to:

Sorry I can't link anything because I am not tech savy but hopefully a list is useful too. Got most of these off of instagram so maybe you'll see the posts circulating around. Keep in mind I am a minor who does not live in the U.S so if these are not the most helpful don't flame me.

LQBTQ Resources:

The 988 lifeline- 988lifeline.org (Call,text, or chat)

The Trevor project- thetrevorproject.org/get-help (24/7 crisis counselling)

SAGE x Hearme-sageusa.org/hearme (On demand mental wellness app)

LGBTQ center directory- lgbtqcenters.org/LGBTCENTERS (Centre directory, find one near you)

PFLAG- pflag.org/findachapter (Find a chapter near you)

QChat space-qchatspace.org (Online Lgbtq community for teens)

Suicide/crisis hotline

Dial 988 or visit 988lifeline.org

Warm lines that don't call the police:

Call blackline- 800-604-5841 (Centre's BIPOC, LGBTQ, Black femme lens)

Trans lifeline-877-585-8660 (U.S number) Canada has one of these too if you need it

Wildflower alliance peer support line- 888-407-4515 (Trained peer supporters

Strong hearts Native helpline- 844-762-8483

Thrive lifeline- 313622-8209 (Trans led and operated)

LGBTQ national help center- 888-843-4564

Hope that helps

Other easy ways to take care of your mental health:

Take a social media break/hiatus

Hang out with friends or family

Get out in nature (Go for a hike, bike ride ect)

distract yourself with comfort media

read

do something creative

practice a hobby

I already have a post with a pretty extensive list of stuff you can do to distract/cope if you need any ideas. I'm not going to copy it all out but its just a little down from this post in my account if you scroll.

Above all please stay safe:

Many have mentioned this but make sure you stay safe too, especially if you are in a red state where people may be looking for an opportunity. As fucked up as it feels to even type this out:

Scrub your socials of anything that may "Give you away" if you feel you need to

If you know someone who is queer, trans, poor, pregnant, an immigrant, needing an abortion, getting an abortion done, or anything that could make living dangerous to them- no you don't. try and keep loved ones safe if you can

Don't out yourself for being any of the above things if you can help it

Don't engage in politics talk with people if you can help it. If someone asks what party you supported don't tell them, they may just be looking for information they can use

One last reminder:

Please remember to:

Eat regular meals/remember to eat at all

Drink water

Take screen breaks (As it will hurt your eyes and give you a headache)

Go to sleep at a regular time

don't bed rot all day

don't doom scroll election content all day

turn off the news at some point, its not healthy to sit and watch the news all day

get out in nature/step outside and touch grass and get some fresh air if you can

talk to your loved ones and seek support if you need

get off social media for a bit (Even if you say all day social media doesnt make a difference to you I know it does)

make sure to take it easy today if you can, take care of your mental health and I hope that everything will be alright for you guys. Stay safe out there

[midnightsilver]

Tips for Spn Artists posting on Tumblr 😄👍🏻

I see a lot of new artists posting Spn art and it can be a struggle to get your art out there. Or you might be new to Tumblr and not sure how best to put yourself forward.

I post Spn art and do a lot of bangs when my health permits. And I have picked up some tips that I have found helpful for posting art tumblr 😄 so I thought I would share.

Please feel free to take any of these points or leave them as suits you!

✨Personalise your header and icon. Bots will often make posts with popular tags and stolen art, to try and gain followers before throwing out the spam links, but some clues the account is a bot is not having personalised headers and icons, not having a long history of posts (more than a few days), and not talking about their art or fandom. So make sure you don’t look like a bot 😄

✨Interact with accounts you enjoy. Like, comment and reblog your favourite accounts and they will likely return the favour and you will get more followers. The first way your post gets noticed is by your followers. Interacting isn’t always easy if one is an introvert or doesn’t have much time for social media, but do what you can where you can.

✨If don’t have many followers then the next best thing is to use tags more. People follow key tags to find new posts from blogs they are not aware of. I recommend using the ‘Spn fanart’ tag on all your art posts. Also be sure to include: common ship names, the character names, and key words like: cute, funny, angst, angel, wings, etc 👍🏻 😄 this will help people find your posts, so be sure to tag consistently!

✨Make a personal art tag, it could be ‘your name art’ or something as wacky as you like. But tag all your art with it! If someone sees your art post out in the Spn fanart tags and they like it, they can click your art tag to see the rest of your art posts.

✨Don’t include links to outside webpages unless absolutely necessary. If you are posting for a bang, reblog the bang master post for the story which has the links to ao3, but then make your own art post and only link to the tumblr master post. Tumblr often hides posts with links to outside webpages (so that the porn bots sending you to spam websites get minimised, but unfortunately this also minimises links to ao3 or shops 😔). Links to another post inside of tumblr are ok tho! So to keep your art post from being hidden from searches, only link back to the master tumblr post with the story info. If people want to read the story they can follow the ao3 link from there. But it’s better that they actually get to see your art (the ‘advert’ for the story) in the first place so that they know it exists!

Also keep this info in mind if you are linking to your shop or your other socials. Your direct followers will see your shop posts but because of the external links the post might be hidden from searches. Consider doing a mix of posts with direct shop links and ones that get the info out there but link back to a pinned tumblr post or bio post with the outside link.

✨Don’t crowd your art. Many people view tumblr on mobile so your pictures will look small. People can’t really see the details if you put 2 images side by side. Put one image on each line and consider making some cropped images to show close up details of your favourite bits. You need to catch people as they are quickly scrolling past, so be sure that you make it easy for them to see what you are offering.

✨And finally don’t be afraid to do reblogs. It isn’t rude to reblog your own work, it’s helpful. Dashboards can get very busy and even if people follow you, your post might be burried a long way down if they don’t get back online multiple times a day. Reblogs will give them a chance to see what they missed. As long as you are not posting on the hour every hour, most people appreciate 2 or 3 reblogs at different times to save them having to scrolled back for days! 😄 and don’t forget that tumblr is multinational. Time zone reblogs can be helpful.

✨oh I forgot one more thing! Don’t put yourself down! No piece of art is perfect! Ever! But Michelangelo doesn’t start off by apologising that the statue of David is out of proportion. And neither should you! Let your work shine where it shines and don’t bury it in put-downs before you even give others the chance to enjoy its triumphs! You deserve better and so do they!

Those are the main points my friends. If you have any other helpful tips that you want to share, feel free to reblog this and add on points. We were all new to this hellsite (affectionate) at some point. And life is already hard for us struggling artists so whatever we can do to help each other is a good thing 💛

Stay awesome my friends, and happy Arting 🙌🏼😄

[troxlerfx]

hello!! i am troxler (trox if you're nasty) and you might know me from my xwitter @ broadcastrelay or my old experimental art blog @hand-in-hand-again .

this blog is sfw. i have a more reblog-heavy nsfw sideblog, @heartshapedsignal , where i can place aesthetics, rb art that i like, Cronenbergpost & generally toss up more intense horror things & keep this one somewhat more tidy + personal-art-oriented. follow my alt if you please; although it's unlikely i'll ever post anything too explicit, there is nsfw/🔞 potential, so again, heartshapedsignal is 🔞 just to be safe!!

i have a throne account here if you'd like to support my work by helping with supplies & thereby earn my eternal gratitude:

commissions are currently closed & i will update here & on xwitter if that changes!!

i do have discord if you'd like to chat, you can DM me for my username. i'm vision impaired & it's a little easier for me than tumblr DMs (scalable font. properly mapped keyboard that allows me to hit the right keys occasionally. you know 👁️)

i am sometimes slow to respond to messages, but i don't expect you to be available all the time either--i answer things when i have a moment, & i assume others do too ✌️ i have the temperament of a displaced 11th century anchorite, am simply not adapted to the tone & pace of centralized social media.

i also unfortunately cannot voice call or stream/screen share because i am a millennial (just kidding, it's because my phone is almost 9 years old & it overheats when i check my e-mail)

learn a bit more about me under the cut ✂️

i was dropped into this simulation in the early 80s, i'm a disabled artist (vision impaired - [ask me about my atrophied optic nerves] - & have some other physical Issues so i use a cane) & my wife and i host two black cats, roughly 35% of a mannequin, and a whole lot of dolls.

all my art is trad/physical media (haven't figured out a way to make digital art accessible yet. maybe someday!!) i like to sculpt in epoxy, plastilene, polymer & stone clay, i like to mold & cast in resin, make & customize various types of dolls, & build puppets; i do custom framed work, mixed media & textile stuff like sewing & embroidery; i paint in oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache & water soluble graphite & i love ink, markers, crayons & whatever cheap & weird stuff i can get my hands on.

i have a particular affection for props, prop replicas & hypothetical in-universe items, & i like things that are handsome, durable & believable. i'm versatile & innovative, & i'm at my happiest when i'm exploring technical processes. i have quite a bit of knowledge about techniques & materials. i love a challenge!! currently all my sewing is done by hand, i have trouble controlling pedal-operated machines.

my favorite thing is horror coated in a fine layer of nostalgia & sprinkled with history. that seems highly specific, but you'd be surprised how many things fit the criteria. i tend to fixate on characters & concepts & do a lot of art about it - a habit i developed while i was re-teaching myself to draw after the changes to my eyesight. my output is largely therapeutic. sometimes people like it. maybe you will too!!

a good amount of my work is fanart & will be tagged as such/otherwise linked to the appropriate project, original work will be specified & have its own tag.

at the moment i make a lot of work related to the independent psychological horror unfiction project Welcome Home, created by ' partycoffin ' here on tumblr.

that's all for now!! 👁️‍🗨️📺

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT SEO & MARKETING NEWS FOR ECOMMERCE, March 2024

Welcome to my roundup of SEO and marketing news and useful resources for ecommerce businesses, March edition. There is a lot going on with Google, and some really strong marketing pieces this time around, so let's get right to it.

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Google launched both a core algorithm update and spam updates on March 5, with the spam update ending on the 20th. Core updates now include the Helpful Content algorithm. In early observations, Etsy and Reddit both picked up visibility in the UK. 

The Helpful Content algorithm updates late last year destroyed a lot of sites’ Google traffic. Avoid the things they had in common.  You can read the full study here. 

Ecommerce sites were some of the biggest losers in Google visibility in 2023, with Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Etsy, Target and Best Buy in the top 10 of sites whose Google appearances slipped. 

New to Google SEO? They’ve revamped their SEO starter guide for people like you. And if you are more advanced and want to learn how to optimize your website product pages, this is a good overview. 

This lengthy article on backlinks for ecommerce websites covers pretty much all the angles, including the really difficult ones. 

Reminder that if you want to rank on Google for a search term, you need to look at what is already ranking, and make decisions based on that content. [video and transcript] This works for most search engines, not just Google. 

Yes, Google crawls “high quality” content more often. I used to refer to this as Google thinking the page is “interesting”, so I guess I will need to change my wording...

While Google sends the most traffic to websites, people spend a lot more of their online time elsewhere. Market where people are, not just where your stats say they came from. 

Sadly, Google has stopped providing caches of website pages in its search results. While you can still see the caches of some pages by using the Google search Cache:[page link] as in cache:https://cindylouwho-2.tumblr.com that will eventually stop working as well. Bing still provides caches, but unfortunately both it and the Wayback Machine do not crawl often enough to give really recent results most of the time. 

Missed Google news in February? Here’s your update. And just in case you are really behind, here is January. 

Not Google

Unsure if your website has enough good backlinks? Bing Webmaster Tools will now tell you if you don’t. 

Yandex - the top search engine in Russia - was sold by its Dutch ownership group to a consortium in Russia. 

SOCIAL MEDIA - All Aspects, By Site

General

A US study of social media use found that the most popular site was YouTube, with 83% of adults using it. Two-thirds of American adults use Facebook, while TikTok is up to ⅓ of the US population. 

Because they do change periodically, here are the latest image and video sizes recommended for the top social media platforms. [infographic]

Bluesky is now open to everyone - it was previously invite-only. 

Facebook (includes relevant general news from Meta)

Meta has introduced several changes to its Ad options, applying to Facebook and Instagram. 

Meta had a great 4th quarter in 2023, with revenue, users, and earnings per share up. “Fast-growing upstarts Temu and Shein, which originated in China, have been pouring money into ads on Facebook and Instagram. Li said on Thursday that revenue from China-based advertisers accounted for 10% of sales for the year and 5 percentage points of growth.”

Instagram

An updated post on Instagram's algorithm and how it works. 

Instagram is still beta testing longer Reels for some users. 

If your account is a brand account, you can now run ads on Instagram with coupon codes right in them. (Some Facebook users can already do this.)

LinkedIn

Among other recent changes on LinkedIn, the algorithm is now looking to boost important content longer than just the first day or two after publication. 

Pinterest

Pinterest has its own stats package, called Pinterest Analytics, but only for “Business” accounts. They show how many people clicked on the outgoing links, how many people saw your pin on their screen, and much more. Here’s everything you need to know. 

Reddit

Reddit successfully launched on the stock market this past week, but questions remain about how this will change the site. 

Google is paying Reddit to scrape its content through the API instead of from the web. 

Snapchat

Snap was a little later than most tech companies doing layoffs recently, waiting until February 5 to let 10% off staff go. 

Threads

Threads is so new that the algorithm is bound to change a lot in the next year, but for right now, here is how it works. 

TikTok

There is an overwhelming amount of info out there on the US attempt to either ban TikTok or force its sale, and much of it is incomplete, so I will let you Google to your heart’s content if you want to learn more. If you are relying on TikTok to drive sales, this would be a good time to make sure you diversify your promotional strategy. 

You can now track trending terms on TikTok through the Creator Search Insights section. “Creator Search Insights will highlight frequently searched topics, which creators can organize by category (for example, tourism, sports, science) or tailor to their content type with the “For You” option. Additionally, creators can filter for “content gap” topics, which are highly searched but have relatively few videos on TikTok covering them.“

TikTok may be testing a photo app, which would obviously compete with Instagram. 

Twitter

What? Twitter may have lied about its Super Bowl ad performance? I’m so not shocked. 

Tumblr

Tumblr will be selling data access to AI companies. 

YouTube

This is a pretty decent article on YouTube SEO. 

(CONTENT) MARKETING (includes blogging, emails, and strategies) 

Small and micro-businesses need an email list. An email list is:  

portable (unlike most social media followers or marketplace buyers) 

is available to almost everyone, as we all need at least one email address if we are online

less susceptible to the whims of algorithms (unlike SEO, marketplaces, social etc.)  

I keep seeing people argue that no one opens emails, but the chart in the article above is proof that is still wrong. (My blog email list averages close to a 70% open rate, depending on the topic and the time I send it. My jewellery email list - which I hardly ever send to - still has an over 30% open rate. My click rates are well above the industry averages, usually 30 to 40% of all recipients for the blog list. These are much better numbers than social, and astronomically better than my clickthrough rate on Google and other search engines.)

Gmail and Yahoo both changed how they handle bulk emails such as newsletters in February. Here’s what you need to know on the basics, including authenticating yourself so your email gets through. 

Find out how to get people to read all the way to the end of your content. 

Get ready for April marketing with 5 topical ideas. National Handmade Day is April 6. 

We should all think twice before deciding to use AI to create content. “Circa 2024, generative AI does not produce new ideas or even develop its own conclusions. Rather, it regurgitates information that it has indexed.” Not convinced? Here’s another article. “AI-generated content represents the literal “average of everything online.”

ONLINE ADVERTISING (EXCEPT INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND ECOMMERCE SITES) 

Google Ads can now be tracked in Google Analytics 4. 

Both Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising were up in the 4th quarter of 2023. 

STATS, DATA, TRACKING 

Google Analytics 4 tracks organic traffic differently than the previous version. Here’s how to figure it out. 

BUSINESS & CONSUMER TRENDS, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

I’ve probably posted this specific article before, but it is worth another read: how to communicate with customers.  For example, “Mirroring your customer’s tone lets them know you’re on their side. If a customer is formal, for example, hold back on the LOLs. If they’re more casual, relax your tone.”

According to a US study, Generation Z is skewing the traditional marketing funnel. “Per Archrival’s data, 77 per cent of Gen Zs and 79 per cent of millennials in the US are actively seeking style inspiration at least monthly, with almost half of those looking for style inspiration on social media. When asked where they learn about new brands, products and experiences, video reigns supreme: YouTube is the most popular platform with Gen Zs, followed by TikTok, then Instagram.”

Trend alert: bag charms are back. 

IMAGES, VIDEO, GRAPHIC DESIGN, & FREE ONLINE TOOLS

Almost all of these 12 video tools are free, and some can be used on your phone. 

MISCELLANEOUS

This is an older piece, but it checks out: IKEA Hacks for Craft Show Displays. A few of these could be done with non-IKEA items. 

Want to stay up-to-date on a nearly daily basis? Follow me on Bluesky or on LinkedIn, or become a member of my Patreon.

[yukipri]

I joined Threads! Unfortunately my reach on Insta is still the most limited of all of my socials, and that’s the account Threads is directly attached to.

If you’re on either Insta or Threads, would love if you could stop by🙏

Direct linking to Threads doesn't seem to work...so here's

my Instagram

through which you can find my Threads account!

Edit: You actually can link to Threads, ironically through the icon at the top of individual Instagram account pages on desktop. Though Desktop viewing is currently limited to individual pages, and you can't necessarily scroll the feed. So here's my Threads page!

~~

Next, some initial thoughts on the platform for those who are kinda curious what this new thing is. Not at all an expert, just some info I've gathered myself, that I'd personally have liked to know before joining:

On Threads

・It launched July 5~6, 2023. Rollout varies by country.

・Twitter's already upset about it, apparently there's a lawsuit. So I guess it considers Threads a possible threat.

・It's run by Meta, same folks as Insta and Fb.

・The accounts are directly linked to Instagram, which has its pros and cons. You need an Insta account to make a Threads account, but if you already have an Insta account, it's very easy to make a connected Threads account. However, once linked, they're linked; you can't disable your Threads account without also disabling your Insta account. You can also automatically follow all the accounts you're already following on Insta, to be activated as they make Threads accounts. You can also share Threads posts to your Insta stories.

・Currently only on mobile app, hoping the'll make it desktop accessible soon

・The current audience mostly seems to be folks who have come direct from Instagram. This means yes, a lot of official/influencer accounts, but also a lot of artists/small creators too.

Functionality

・Right now, the "feed/dashboard" is a hot mess. It's just one massive algorithmic spew, no way to curate it, no way to see just the posts by the folks you're following, not even chronological. These are things that i personally require in a social media, so yeah it sucks rn. HOWEVER, they did state that they're working on a "followers only" feed, much like the one on Instagram. If they implement a Followers Only feed like Insta, it'll at least be much better than Twitter's current "Following" feed. There has been no timeline provided on when this may launch.

・It functions much the same as Twitter, with options to create new posts, and like, retweet, quote retweet, and reply to posts made by others. (There's still a lot of floundering about the exact terminology to use, since it's not twitter so you can't "retweet" etc)

・500 Character word limit per post, which is much more than Twitter, ey!

・Up to 10 images per post, doesn't seem to cause image quality reduction either. Rather than being able to arrange the images like on Tumblr though, they're all automatically in a carousel that you can see by swiping.

・Your bio can be the exact same as what's on your insta, but currently only shows followers. In order to see who you follow, you tap "followers" and then when the menu opens, swipe to "following." Then, you can tap on the individual accounts to view their pages. This is currently the only way to ensure you see the posts from certain accounts, because there's no guarantee they'll show up on your feed, and it's a huge pain. But again, they're hopefully working on a fix for this.

My understanding is that the app rushed to launch now, since Twitter is a dumpster fire and people are fleeing. (why is it a dumpster fire? Well, Musk implemented a randomly fluctuating tweet view limitation, which is dumb af, but means it's essentially become unusable to folks who use the platform a lot)

I'm hoping that there'll be improvements to Threads and it'll become a viable Twitter alternative, but until then...yeah we'll keep an eye on it.

Now that I've probably completely turned you off from downloading the app, if you do, a nudge that again I'd appreciate if you stopped by my account, YukiPri_Art on Instagram, and/or YukiPri_Art on Threads!

[nonbinaryeddiekaspbrak]

FANFIC RECS!

here's a revamped version of my rec post - each fic will link to it's corresponding ao3 page, a summary in my words, small notes/review, and a disclaimer for more mature ratings if needed.

enjoy!

(* = new entry, last updated: Dec 3rd, 2023, still going through recent bookmarks)

(ps. let me know if you want your mention to be removed!)

IT

and a stain on my shirt - venom crossover, vv good, also a fix-it, venom finds another eddie to latch onto, a lot of humor, reddie get together, venom saves eddie

awake my soul - pretty angsty, keep an eye on those trigger warnings, this was pretty good, i rlly couldn’t take any breaks with this one, richie and eddie get jumped but in the process of putting away the ones responsible for the hate crime richie finds that he’ll have to come out sooner than he’s ready for, added bonus of art!!, happy ending, has fan reactions and news coverage as things are slowly revealed

come over here and overwhelm me - nsfw, a VERY GOOD rec, SO tender, the fluff is so well written, richie is having a bad day nd eddie comes to the rescue being so hfwjaklhj!!!, this fic said bottom richie rights nd it opened my eyes

don’t break character - HE/THEY RICHIE RIGHTS, richie finds that maybe his journey of identity isn’t over when he hears the word “nonbinary”, very!!!!, fjkdkslahfkl, just him having he/they pronouns is so exciting and flappy hands-worthy

I killed a clown. ama! - it chapter 2 except it’s through the lens of social media from posts by richie eddie myra and background fans, very very entertaining, canon compliant until eddie’s death it’s actually a fix-it, fair amount of angst??

it’s not real - WATCH THE TRIGGER WARNINGS, a lot of angst, very intense, eddie has an amazing richie impression, almost like they share the same braincell, eddie is also vv caring and will drag any faceless internet account down with him, could def make it in celebrity PR according to richie’s manager steve, richie comes out but he gets a horrible reaction and then finds himself in the middle of a clusterfuck of things that unfortunately couldn’t stay in the past, bill apparently also gets cancelled a lot and he cannot cook, he’s also the only other loser in here, a black mirror au, AGAIN WATCH THE TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS ONE

oh, wouldn’t it be nice? - nsfw, some angst, eddie finds richie’s obituary that he got from adrien (the park scene in chap 2; at least i think it was adrien), SUPER SWEET OMG, i had to stop a few times from the sheer amount of emotion this gave me

parental interference - in 1989 some parents are coming to their senses when it comes to a certain clown, i love went he’s an awesome dad, T rating, i suggest a peek at the trigger warnings/tags just in case, canon-typical triggers, again i really love wentworth tozier in this fic he’s a 10/10 dad

predicament bondage - nsfw, richie is 100% a sweetheart, eddie is fjdsljfkslf i love this version of him, richie is cast as a dom in a movie so he decides to get information from a professional which is eddie but he finds that working with eddie might bring his heart into the mix, a lot of internalized homophobia so watch out, ur honor i love eddie here

puppets and plants - the way this was written? *muah* my number two rec, some angst, the intimacy of u nd the guy set up across from u at the farmer’s market, amazing stanpat dynamic, trans eddie and ben!, pride parade!!

the king is gone - absolutely AMAZING time travel fix-it, fairly long, some angst, some fluff, not at all a boring read

the lockbox - pushing an M rating? maybe a T?, asexual eddie finding out that he’s ace and everything that comes with realizing u aren’t straight, honestly made my ace heart so happy, bit of angst

work friends and emergency contacts - outsider pov, eddie makes a work friend, fix-it w both eddie and stan living, eddie gets a divorce pre-itch2, damon just wants the best for richie and eddie, reddie getting together, richie visits eddie at work

STRANGER THINGS

bottle it up until it overflows - ohhhh boy, i absolutely love the vecna possessing mike trope and this fic definitely lives up to high standards, rated mature, bad parent ted wheeler and internalized homophobia, basically mike gets vecna'd is the entire plot - @ghoulsanderson

i feel like i know you (but we never met) - post season 4 of stranger things, ambiguous / open ending, teen rating, oh boy this made me emotional!, without spoilers i have to say this is such an angsty fic and i love it, this fic is written beautifully, the party all forget will because of vecna suppressing their memories, spoilers: mike puts everything together to figure out who the "missing person" is - @andiwriteordie

something's made your eyes go cold - TW SUICIDE ATTEMPTS, rated mature, mike is chronically suicidal, very very angsty but relatable (sadly), oneshot - @defendingtammythompson

when everything was fiction, future and prediction - two words: time travel, mike is confronted by his younger self and figures out a few things, very much hurt/comfort, rated teen

9-1-1 TV

*all the time in the world - i literally know nothing about the dsmp but the way this was written is so beautiful, i love angst and buddie but also buck angst gets me the most, evan buckley used to be someone called karl jacobs but eddie doesn't know that and thinks buck is a war veteran, he's not entirely wrong but also don't make me fact check that beyond reading this, this fic makes me feel super autistic in a way i can't explain, time travel and secret identities are just so my jam dude, bonus chris moment that made me squeal bc chris eddie and buck are so family material - @official-impravidus

*my palms and fingers still reek of gasoline - such a good crossover, the characterization is very very good, i definitely need to read it again, a pjo au that has a twist, demigod buck and eddie are special to me now, having buck be on that side is an interesting choice and i like it, buck's mom being aphrodite makes so much sense - @trashyinfernomusic

[deathwords334]

(Disclaimer: This is not my work. I am in no way affiliated with the artist. I just want to show off artists that I think need more attention. I also don't have anyone I can talk to about the rabbit hole I've gone down that is Good Omens doujins. I will supply links to their social media and where you can find the publications (If available))

Well this is the third time I've posted about Gractus. So I'm not sure what else I can say about them... Especially once I say what this book is... Oh! I found out semi recently that they were part of the Demon Slayer fandom before Good Omens. They've published some Rengoku x Tanjiro books in the past!

Now then...

This is Breakfast at Edinburgh by Gractus

This is a printed version of their work on Twitter. There are two stories that were drawn specifically for this book, but they are available to some degree on their account. One is about the two having breakfast in Edinburgh. The other has the two stargazing.

As I've said before, I love their art so I'll buy whatever they put out. And I'm happy I get to have a physical copy of their online work. The unfortunate truth when it comes to the internet is that, it's not forever. Despite the old saying, things go missing quite easily. Either intentionally or just by virtue of time. Ya physical stuff will go missing too, but hey having multiple copies of something makes it easier to keep hold of right?

Ugh I'm getting pessimistic... Especially with all the doom and gloom of what might become of the internet in the near future...

Anyway, The book is probably the smallest book I own, along with a light novel I bought kind of on a whim. Like it can fit in my hand. The cover is glossy, like their last book, and the colors are super vibrant! Also, the inside cover page is textured and pink!

The book is available on their Pico page (link above). Also, they've recent released another book called "Suītorondonbakku", or 'Sweet London Black'. It's a sequel to their previous book, and is also a R-18 book (and the link I gave also has a link to some of those pages too 😉 I didn't know I needed to see Aziraphale sticking his tongue out till now). Spoiler alert, I bought it and it recently arrived. And of course I love it too~!

[pathofreason]

huge slash random as hell to do esque list.

feel free to ignore or tell me how you keep yourself in check ex. diary, notion, etc. liking this so i can save it lol + i think i'll pin it too

make new emails ; come up with email handles. need emails for:

instagram, spotify, letterboxd, discord, pinterest, fragnatica, last.fm

tumblr

games (hsr, gi, etc)

college (will keep using the same one, listed for visualization) *

sort of professional ish sounding email *

? github , etc *

notion ??? i'm scared of having personal data stolen even tho i would assume it happens all the time but this is why i always have a handful of diff emails for diff things so mostly none are linked and i'm unsure if i should have the notion one separate from the rest etc.

* possibly the same one as the one for college? maybe make a new one? github should be same as the pro one but i have no github acc yet unfortch. etc. college one is mostly just getting emails forwarded there, etc

will think of more things for the email section later. if there even is more to think about

think of good usernames a la "pathofreason" that can stick for a while and aren't cringe/won't need to be changed after 3 months. same goes for the emails

make a FUCKING notion account dear god. i have obsidian but it does not feed my aesthetics hungry brain at all

not nearly as important as anything else in this post and almost done already but need to really stabilize it - - - lists of favourites: films / writers / directors / musicians / philosophers / fashion designers / songs / albums. will add more if i remember

MAKE LIST OF GROCERIES I WOULD BUY WEEKLY.

DAILY ROUTINE INCLUDING:

10k steps minimum

waking up between 5:30 and 9:00 + at most 10:00 on days off, 11:00 to 12:00 if feeling unwell or hungover

going to bed between 22:00 and 00:30

at least 70% healthy food. if unhealthy then eat insanely little and balance

water consistently no specific goal in ml

stretching for mobility

light workouts at least 30min while doing something else (watching youtube, cooking etc)

study minimum 1h

write in diary/journal when i do start - and i should start asap

hand cream at night

shower - no hair

TAKE GOD DAMN VITAMINS ETC

brush teeth morning and night

WEEKLY (ish) ROUTINE INCLUDING:

read book(s). no weekly page goal

watch one film per week

listen to the only two podcasts i enjoy will not list them here

wash hair twice a week (wednesday and weekend?)

exfoliate once a week or every second week if no energy

thursday casino after classes for free €10 "ladies night" on machines DO NOT STAY LATE

WHEN GOING OUT:

gloves

scarf

lipstick/gloss/eyeshadow

sunglasses

€100 MONTHLY BUDGET COVER:

extra for groceries if needed - estimate weekly €15 monthly €65

bus ticket if needed - €15

hygiene necessities - estimate monthly €20

if i don't use it up for these then i can spend it on whatever i want. most notable and common options coffee, makeup, clothes

ORGANISE:

spotify (playlists)

lists on letterboxd (decide favourite films finally)

closet - do i even have a style? get rid of cringe shit from years ago. get in touch with what i have and if i need more or replacements or declutter etc

book collection

phone. the entire thing

CLEAN AND ORGANISE MY ROOM AND APARTMENT

START REPLACING WHAT IS LEFT OF SHITTY FOOTWEAR AND COATS/JACKETS/ETC

NEED TO BUY:

socks that don't suck ass

small pouch for my makeup that isn't ugly looking

l'occitane hand cream

lip balm(s)

coffee capsules for machine

pajamas

WANT TO BUY:

mac lipstick in diva

dior single eyeshadow in beige mitzah

chanel eyeshadow quad - haven't decided which one

those perfect €165 red boots (thin heels unfortunately) i found but don't remember the brand

NEED TO FIND:

good coats in general

good snow boots

good sunscreen - it's almost winter rn so not necessity for rn but very important

WANT TO TRY:

"skincare" - idk if i'm being gaslit by social media tho i'm 20yo idk if this chemical shit even matters other than sunscreen ofc

WANT TO FIND:

real fur ushanka

(real duh) leather gloves

chanel lipstick i actually like

nail lacquer that isn't in an ugly looking bottle : clear, red, beige. etc

MIDTERMS START ON THE 19TH GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER AND FUCKING STUDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND ALSO WORKOUT TO GET FUCKING SKINNIER DAMN!!!!! AND GET ORGANISED!!!!