#its crazy to me how little subscribers he has compared to other youtubers that make the same genre of videos as him because his videos

[venomgender]

scott cramer worlds best youtuber

[technobladetimestamps]

Nov 16 Stream Timestamps

Timestamps from Technoblade’s “THE REVOLUTION (dream SMP)”

Link to my youtube comment with all of the timestamps x

Timestamps with hyperlinks below

02:13  “This is a surprise tool which will help us later” / thumbnail isn’t foreshadowing / video thumbnails have to be big / stream thumbnails can be detailed 05:17  “The traitor is actually Jschlatt” / firework crafting 09:50  “The ratio is impeccable” 13:23  “Dream’s in the game! My audience retention rate” / vc with Tubbo & Quackity / traitor Jschlatt theory / “Are you high?” “A little” 14:47  “You’re a bit of a wildcard” “I am the most consistent character on the entire server” / “What’s this about getting into power” / “We’ll burn this bridge when we get to it” 15:54  “You really are such an English major” / “You’re an idiom” / malaphor / “I’m actually speaking twice as much English as you guys” 18:07  “I think Thunder is overcompensating in the chat” / “Where can you see me” “In my heart” (Karl & Quackity) / Karl not leaving vc 20:33  vc with Niki / “Did Tubbo just leave me? I spaced out for 2 seconds” / “You can’t call everyone the traitor” “I can & will” 22:45  “You know it’s an event when Skeppy’s here” / “You know it’s a big deal when Georgenotfound wakes up” / “Everyone leaves me” 23:31  explaining the traitor thing to Niki / “Maybe I’m a sleeper agent” / had to kill Tubbo 25:03  nothing happened with that creeper / Fundy interrogating Niki / “Why did I train her for MCC” 25:54  “Even YOU’RE leaving me” / sad music / “I’m sitting here with 203k viewers & it’s not enough for any of these streamers to bear talking to me for more than 60 seconds” / Skeppy joins vc to immediately leave 28:50  Karl has a gift for Techno / Karl is just here for the animatic 32:21  “At least the chat won’t leave me” / pays for his music 35:01  “I’m going to destroy the government so bad” / “I hate all of the farming updates on skyblock” 37:45  joining a vc / “I just got stood up in like 4...conversations in rapid succession” / “My new years resolution was to make friends & it’s november & I’ve made zero headway” / Eret switches sides 41:53  Ender chest setup / worried about hotbar management / potions > shields   43:13  vc with allies / “Karl you are literally the biggest third wheel I have ever seen” 45:03  angering the dogs / trident combo 47:13  “D!ck with one ball” (Tubbo) 50:25  “Let’s hope Wil overslept like [George]” 53:09  recruiting Eret / “If you fight on our side we’ll make you the King of Burger King” / “He’ll be an executive citizen” / “I’m surrounded by idiots” 54:58  putting Schlatt on the allies list / “Schlatt is an alcoholic high on protein power” (Fundy) 56:47  can’t trust Eret / “I hate it when you’re right” (Tubbo) / Wilbur joins vc 59:50  having a moment with Hubert / “Not even the mobs like me” / sad music / “I just gained 8k subscribers the sadness is gone” / cow pit exp farm 1:02:57  vc with Niki / “I’m going to join the other vc AHHHHH” 1:05:02  “Once everyone meets up...I have something prepared” / “Technoblade when are you not ready?” “When I joined the server” 1:09:38  “Who do you take me for? Of course I’ve read the Art of War. It’s written by Mozart” / battle planning 1:12:18  “This is the betrayal...happening very slowly” 1:13:35  Pan1 / “This revolution is so doomed” 1:15:29  Dream attack / Quackity dies 1:18:07  “Agree Retweet” / “Violence is the only universal language” / “i have a supply” / “Why do you talk in upwards inflections constantly?” 1:19:57  Techno not getting to talk / “He took it all by force didn’t he” / “Fear into Ear” 1:23:50  Techno telling everyone he has a stash twice / distributing blue / mushroom the fox 1:26:49  Tommy talking over Techno again / “Stop going off on your tangents” “We have food at home” 1:29:30  vault reveal / Tubbo stealing emeralds / secret chest 1:32:40  “Shut up bro you are green as shit” (Tommy) / “Everyone give me back my stuff you don’t deserve it” 1:34:41  no netherite swords / “Who’s the traitor” “Promise we won’t be mad” 1:36:31  battle / Technoblade trident maneuvering / giving rocket launchers to Tubbo & Tommy 1:40:27  killing Karl / Dream bringing out the end crystals / fighting invis Dream / purpled switches sides 1:43:57  Dream wants to talk / 309k / group photos 1:46:08  vc with Dream / “But only if my enemy insists” / in the van with Schlatt / “What are you doing in my drug van? It better not be drugs” / Tommy preparing to shoot Schlatt 1:54:42  “We won” / “We killed an old man with heart problems! It only took 20 of us!” / President Innit / subscribe to Technoblade sign 1:55:57  Dream & Techno talk in chat / Tommy speech / “It was meant to be” / “I don’t think anyone is bowing to Tommyinnit” / “Karl don’t be weird” / Skeppy has a disc 1:59:06  Techno being apprehensive on mute / Tommy makes Wilbur President / “I’ll be the president” “I’m gonna veto that” / “Techno...you’ve taught me that government is not the way to go” / Wilbur makes Tubbo president 2:03:20  “I’m not sure I like where this is going x2” / “I’m not sure this is a good ending” / “Team chaos” “Perhaps” 2:06:20  Techno shoots Tubbo / Philza joins / “You think Schlatt was the cause of your problems? No. It was government” / speech gets interrupted / “The government ends here, I’ll kill it myself!” 2:09:23  Phil kills Wilbur / techno yelling for silence / “Tommy you just did a coup...& instilled yourself as president” 2:12:11  “If you want to be a hero THAN DIE LIKE ONE” / wither spawning / killing his former allies 2:15:09  post fight talks / “There will be no new government today. It will be over my dead body” / “Techno was not the traitor” 2:18:50  “I need to increase the crater that is L’Manberg so that no country can rise in its place” / “Mom says it’s my turn on the flame bow” 2:23:51  “What I’m doing right now is small scale. This is the work of an individual. This is nothing compared to the cruelty governments all around the world [inflict]...systematically” / “Llamas are the primary victims of war” / “I just wanna be apart of the explosion” (George) 2:27:06  Techno joins vc / connor joins the server / “I hope you’re proud of yourself Techno” “I kinda am” / Jack Manifold (Thunder) being broke / netherite armor 2:32:30  “Beach episode” / Techno accidentally joins the L’Manberg vc 2:35:16  the base is compromised / “There’s no way Technoblade would put a clock there if it didn’t mean anything” / got robbed 2:37:37  “If you’re going to ask me how I got all these emerald & arrows that’s a story for another day” / explaining the bedrock / “I can give everyone stuff & it’ll be such a flex” 2:40:24  Greek mythology 2:41:45  The Golden Apple / “They didn’t use discord back then they used skype, so can’t invite Eris” / “Zeus the god of feminism” 2:46:02  Eret recruiting Techno to kill George / joining vc / “Let’s stop him before he gets land” / Awesamdude proposing a fight 2:49:08  “No one can kill me I’m invincible” (logs out) / Dream literally names the turtle potions Sam thinks he hasn’t heard of / “I’m at soup” / “It’s not smack talk he just has that many items” 2:53:06  “Stab him Dream, I’ll shout encouraging words” / Techno fighting Bad & Ant 2:56:23  Dream wins / “I think there was this Dream guy attacking you with some sort of weapon” 3:00:11  turtle potions / Dream hyping up Techno about fighting BBH / Badlands negotiating with George 3:04:34  vc with Philza 3:07:00  spider farm afk’ing / lagging Quackity’s computer 3:09:06  smp earth / Phil only logged on to back Techno up 3:10:32  killing George / “I’m gonna drop his armor off don’t jump me” / not fighting Dream 3:13:00  vc with Karl & Phil / Karl definitely not starting a government / “Chat that was the boring part, don’t leave” / 320k / “Why do we keep scheduling these on Monday?” 3:16:18  “I don’t even want to think about how famous Tommy will be in the future” / “I get a tad bitter” / covid is good for youtubers but obviously bad / “I’m so good at socially distancing” 3:19:51  “Aren’t you tired of being nice Philza? Don’t you just wanna go crazy” / “You should be wary of the old in a profession where people die young” / vc with Eret 3:21:47  “What if you built a slightly larger throne next to it?” /  “How are they paranoid of a mole but the guy with a track record of being a traitor gets no questions asked” 3:25:47  “I’m gonna place a block at the bottom & kill you instantly” / reverse mlg /  emerald rich even with Tubbo’s theft 3:27:57  “I’ll allow it” / upstairs chests robbed / Eret disconnects with the book 3:32:04  armor sabotage bc he thought it’d be 1v5 / crystals are mutually assured destruction / Wilbur afraid of tnt getting blown up early 3:34:11  the diary was actually Eret’s / “He’s gonna tell everyone who I have a crush on. Nooo” / reading the 100 page book / “Can I not win here?” “No” 3:40:14  “This stream has released more serotonin in my brain than the last 6 months combined” / revolution was overcrowded / could improve the crater 2:43:09  “Awkward ten minute period where I’m just sitting there watching them set up a new government but I can’t kill them yet” / Carl is missing 3:44:34  “The one time Technoblade is gonna roleplay & they talk over him” / “CARL” / “As long as Sapnap isn’t the one that took him there’ll still be hope” 3:46:10  “Once you start using end crystals it’s the only pvp that matters & end crystal pvp is so lame” / Webtoons 3:49:10  “What’s going to happen to you & WIlbur now?” “I don’t know, I think I’m chill with Wilbur” / “The only thing that changed is my voice. Zero personal growth” / lines from the first speech that got interrupted / “King George is trending booo” 3:52:00  1 million twitter followers / “O god it’s been four hours...I am not built for this” / did a 13 hour stream once / sub growth goals 3:56:30  “What the heck is Phil watching”

[mocha-sim]

For a while now I’ve wanted to write out a post concerning where I stand on the whole issue with YanSim and its developer (in short: neutral, leaning heavily towards the negative side, but I like the potential of the story and characters). There are a lot of problems and I really want to throw in my two cents

This might not be necessary, but I need to get it off my chest, and hopefully make some people think about other points of view

Warning: long post ahead

1. Six years and still in development

I can really see both sides here

On one hand, six full years without even one rival - the single most important part of the game - and a game still full of placeholder assets, and terrible code on top of that, is pathetic

On the other hand, Yandev is working with only a small team of volunteers and himself, who (no matter what he claims) knows very little about game development (from what i’ve seen, he’s made one before, but it looks like a very small-scale and basic fighting game, unlike YanSim which is much more large-scale and has a lot of features)

Professional game teams do have full, high-quality games made in less than six years, but that time is also a product of game company employees being extremely overworked. Lately I’ve seen a lot more people talking about this issue, which is good, but isn’t it hypocritical to not also apply that logic to Yandev?

Again, though, I’m not sure how much time he spends actually working on the game - to me, it seems like he spends a lot of time on discord, reddit, etc. even if he does only stream for a few hours every night. Maybe the “harassment” that’s “slowing down game development” wouldn’t be such an issue if he didn’t spend so much time online interacting with these people?

2. The writing and characters

I’m not a huge fan of how the game’s story is handled, either

I don’t think it’s 100% fair to cast a final judgement with the game the way it is now - Osana not being out is in no way a good thing, but it also means that there hasn’t really been any opportunity for story or character development yet, especially for the rivals. That being said:

I feel like there’s a lot of wasted potential with characters’ individual stories and with the game’s story as a whole, like the “Aishi curse” - I just can’t think of many good stories with a main character who’s basically an empty husk. If Ayano had emotions from the beginning, and actually had to struggle with them, she could be a much more interesting character. There doesn’t even need to be a magical curse for it to run in the family - the way children are raised has a serious impact on the person they grow into. If Ayano is raised by a crazy, abusive stalker of a mother, she may well turn into the same thing.

Taro, too - he has so many contradicting character traits. He yells at Ayano for “scaring him” when she’s carrying a box cutter or laughing, but has the courage to run right up to a murderer and take off their mask?? He doesn’t care about reputations for Osoro or Oka, but won’t love Ayano if her reputation drops too low?? We’re told that he’s “friendly and respectful”, but we’re never shown that part of his personality. On top of that, we’re not really given a reason to like or pursue him as the goal of the game - when he’s not interacting with Girl of the Week, he doesn’t really do anything except sit by the fountain and read. I feel as though Taro should have a routine that involves interacting with other characters and gives us more of a feel for the personality we’re told he’s supposed to have

Raibaru as a whole makes no sense and feels like a satellite character to Osana. In Osana’s shoes, I would want to have a word with her about personal space. There’s not a lot to say about her aside from that, because... she doesn’t really do anything except follow Osana around all day and shut down the player’s attempts to kill her. She feels more like a soulless obstacle than a character

I think there should be more true pacifist options than just matchmaking - even the befriending elimination route will, in Yandev’s own words, involve someone getting hurt. If we’re supposed to have a choice on whether or not to hurt and kill people, there should be more variety in our options

3. The game’s code sucks/it’s poorly-optimized

Yeah.

I don’t know much about coding but the amount of awkward stretching/bending limbs on corpses, clipping through walls, low fps, etc. makes this obvious. It was definitely a bad move on Yandev’s part to start a project like this without at least taking a coding/game development class or something

I think the best course of action for Yandev would be to get a professional programmer on board after Osana is released and spend a few months fixing the game’s code before he starts work on the next rival

4. The character models are just stolen Unity models

They are just unity models, but not “stolen” at all - YanDev paid for them.

That being said, they’re sort of ugly and inexpressive, and personally i’m hoping they get replaced soon

5. The characters are all minors

They’re not. It’s in flashing red letters on the screen when you open the game. I can’t help but feel like the reason people keep insisting that the characters are minors is so that they can feel like heroes for defending them or something

It doesn’t make a lot of logical sense, but there’s still plenty of time for this to be fixed. I think it was recently confirmed that Akademi is called an “academy” now and won’t be referred to as a high school again

Imo YanDev should just change it to a post-secondary school, since that’s probably the most seamless way for all the characters to be adults

One last thing I want to say on this is that, when it gets brought up, I often see people use the excuse “the age of consent in Japan is 13″. 1: it isn’t - the Japanese government lets each prefecture decide its own age of consent, but 13 is the minimum. As far as I know, no prefecture has set it below 16. 2: even if 13 was the age of consent, that doesn’t mean we should accept and defend it as “part of a different culture”. It’s still pedophilia. 3: Japanese people actively protest against things like this

6. The uniforms are middle-school uniforms/don’t look like they belong in a prestigious school

Yeah

However there are multiple uniform options, and it looks like the default uniforms will be completely changed in the final game

7. Panty shots

YanSim is an 18+ game, but there is such a thing as too far

I’ve seen people who tolerate it, but I haven’t seen a single person who actively likes the panty shots and would complain if they were removed. Imo the part that makes this bad is the fact that we, the player, actively have to point our camera up a girl’s skirt and take a photo of her underwear with it being in full view; the whole way this works makes it obvious that the feature was put in there for titillation more than anything else, and it just feels uncomfortable. If it were more like Uekiya’s key-stealing minigame where all we have to do is push a few buttons, the whole gross/uncomfortable aspect could be taken away and a lot of people would probably be fine with it

It would also be better to replace it with an expanded version of the phone-stealing feature: this would let the player get “points” for students of both genders, plus it would still make sense to gain more points for certain students, like the student council or the bullies. Maybe you could even steal teachers’ phones under certain circumstances?

8. YanDev is homophobic

Again not too sure on this one

Iirc, most of the comments people bring up on this are from years ago when he still went by EvaXephon

But speaking as a wlw, I think some of the ways I’ve seen him talk about f/f relationships are pretty creepy. And on top of that, he seems to be considering adding a “female senpai” option to the game, but no male player character? (though i guess i can see the point of view that a male mc would need a lot more new voice lines, animations, etc. while the senpai follows a mostly fixed routine and would only need so many. still, it seems wrong to have one without the other). I hope I’m wrong about this but his support of the LGBT community seems mostly focused on the L and more for his own entertainment than any actual support

9. YanDev is making more money than he should (and handles it poorly)

His Patreon may be dropping, but his YouTube channel is raking in even more money with 2M+ subscribers, and he’s making even more money from things like merch and donations... all while apparently still living with his parents (which i don’t find hard to believe). He’s also apparently bought 2 switches and a sex doll instead of using the money to hire the help he desperately needs with his game

Assuming he really does still live with his parents, I fully support the petition to get his Patreon suspended until he at least finishes Osana. Most game devs don’t make any money off of their games until they’ve finished it completely

10. YanDev wrote rape fanfics

So I did briefly check his old ffn profile some time ago, and as far as I could see everything had the proper ratings and warnings

Tagging/warning/rating is a fanfic author’s only responsibility to you. You make the choice on whether or not to read it. If everything is appropriately tagged and you read it anyway, that’s on you, not the author. If you are mature enough to be on the internet unsupervised, then you are mature enough to curate your own experience.

Fiction is the place to explore controversial themes and topics. It doesn’t mean in any way that a content creator would condone the things they write about in real life

11. YanDev steals art/assets

He does, and still hasn’t apologized for the DLC rivals thing. In fact he made a post defending himself for it, and even compared himself to Andy Warhol in the process (lol)

I’m not sure but I think I heard something recently about him continuing to do this type of thing (the grass, etc.). In which case we should continue to put pressure on him until he credits the creators of whatever art/assets he stole. Art theft is inexcusable

12. The fanbase is mostly kids

This is unfortunately true, and it’s a big problem (i’ve had to deal with it myself on my youtube channel)

However I would personally say that this problem is outside of YanDev’s control. Kids seem to be drawn to edgy/violent things, or things they shouldn’t be allowed to see (just look at Call of Duty). I put the blame for this on the parents who aren’t monitoring their kids’ computer activities. As for YanDev, he’s not a babysitter and it’s not his responsibility to censor his content for kids who shouldn’t be viewing it in the first place

Underage or not though, he should really avoid calling his fans things like “fuck kittens”. Even from the perspective of an adult that’s super creepy to hear

13. The character designs suck

Some are alright, others are absolutely awful

I think that, in a game built on anime tropes, characters should be allowed to have unnaturally-coloured hair. I mean, a lot of characters in anime do have weird hair that you wouldn’t see in real life (seemingly without any dye), and it can add a lot of personality to their designs

But some YanSim characters push that too far. The science club is the worst of the worst imo, despite being otherwise one of my favourite clubs. The neon streaks are ugly, and what’s up with the visors? Why are they allowed to wear those outside of club time? Why do they wear them during club time, as opposed to actual goggles or something? (i have this issue with a lot of club accessories, imo the accessories are unnecessary in the first place)

The bullies and the light music club also take things too far. Their designs are crowded, hard to look at, and out-of-place. Nothing against characters with multi-coloured hair, but there’s a time and a place and a “prestigious” school setting isn’t it

(also, slightly off-topic, but why does almost every “intended couple” look like they could be siblings?)

I could probably make a whole separate post on the character designs in YS, but I’ll save that for another day. (i’m just very passionate about character design)

14. YanDev has collaborated with porn games 3 times now

Once I could overlook (after all, the characters are 18+ and YS is already not for kids) but a third time? Seriously? And so soon after the last one?

Not only do I have mixed feelings about Yandev doing crossovers when his game isn’t even in the demo stage yet, isn’t this game supposed to be taken seriously as a horror game? I can’t think of a single other horror game that has willingly put its characters in porn.

Also I can’t help noticing that he advertises the porn game crossovers a lot more than he did with that one Dark Deception crossover. Did he ever even mention that one? I only ever saw it on the Dark Deception Twitter

15. YanDev is rude to his fans

I don’t have a lot to say against this one. As far as I’ve seen, he is, and he doesn’t take criticism well at all (just look at the subreddit - yes, a lot of the things that were removed deserved it (unfunny cum chalice jokes, etc.) but there have also been completely innocent questions, fanarts, jokes, and fanfics that have been removed. Not to mention mods going through peoples’ post history and banning them for being active in r/Osana. Both he and his mod team seem insanely paranoid)

I think he’s going to have to grow a thicker skin and stop censoring critiques if he wants to get anywhere with this game. Not just fans who bring up tiny details that might need changing, but also big, glaring issues like the code and character designs and such. He also doesn’t seem that professional for a game developer who wants to be taken seriously

That being said, if you’re the type to spam the discord server/subreddit/fan communities who have nothing to do with Yandev like the amino, you deserved that ban

16. YanDev defends pedophiles/the “sex license” thing

“No adult ever has any excuse to do anything sexual with a child. As soon as you touch a kid, you have crossed the line from being someone with a mental disorder to being the worst scum imaginable. Having a mental illness is involuntary, but touching a kid is a choice. If you have a mental illness, I feel bad for you. If you violate a child, I feel disgust and contempt for you, and I think you deserve the death penalty.” -From YanDev himself on this page

The sex license thing is also debunked on the same page: the whole conversation was taken out of context and the hypothetical “license” was supposed to be something that only an adult could meet the requirements for

17. “Corona-chan”

This was a really insensitive move to make in the middle of a pandemic, and I agree that the design was racist

However, YanDev listened to the fans’ complaints and removed the easter egg a day later, plus gave an apology. I think that this was the best thing he could do in that scenario and idk what else people are expecting him to do about it

18. YanDev’s general portrayal of high schoolers

Honestly, it’s not 100% realistic (especially in some of the dialogue. you know what i’m talking about)

I’m surprised that more students don’t seem to have friends outside of their clubs. It seems like all the students mostly stick within their club/group - walking to school together, spending their breaks together, etc. A lot of the ways the characters behave are very robotic, like walking in a perfectly straight line everywhere they go

That being said, a lot of the things i’ve seen criticized in regards to this are not part of the problem. By the time you’re in high school, you’ve probably hit puberty. It doesn’t make a character automatically sexualized if they have bigger breasts (though some designs in the game are over-sexualized, like a few certain staff members)

19. Muja, Mida, and Hanako

Let’s start with Hanako: Yandev has already said that she’s not romantically interested in her brother, she’s just insanely clingy and doesn’t want him to get a girlfriend out of fear that he’ll forget about her. If you still insist that she’s in love with Taro, then that’s on you

Muja and Mida I have mixed feelings on.

If every student is 18 or older, meaning that the first-years are 18, that makes Taro, a third-year, 20-21 years old. If Mida and Muja are in their early 20s as Yandev has said, that means that the age gap isn’t an issue. However, it’s still wrong for a teacher or a nurse to pursue their student/patient

I don’t think Yandev should need to spell out “hey, Mida and Muja are not good people” in flashing neon signs. The game is rated M and anyone who’s old enough to play it should be able to understand that without it being said. If you need morality in fiction spoon-fed to you, you probably shouldn’t be watching/reading/playing anything rated above PG

On the other hand, YanDev has a nasty habit of making these things into a joke, which is really insensitive and creepy. Like saying that Mida’s favourite food is “the spit of a younger man” (yikes), that she’s tried to seduce her own students 69 times (haha 69 so funney right guys XD), or that whole confession scene mess. It’s less of a problem with Muja, but it’s still there. As much as the audience shouldn’t need everything served to them on a silver platter, issues like these should still be treated with respect, not made into gags

20. Yandev wastes time on “Easter eggs”

I have to agree that he does spend time implementing unnecessary things sometimes (like the abc challenge), but as far as I know the Easter eggs are what he does in his spare time while waiting for assets from volunteers. However: snap mode, which was hyped up for years, turned out to be a flop with zero purpose, disappointing a good portion of the fanbase.

21. Love Letter

So far I’m really liking the look of this game: I like the models and the school environment they’ve shown, and it seems like they’re doing a lot of things in better or more interesting ways than YanDev, like not outright telling us who the rivals are. I don’t think it’s fair to accuse them of “stealing” anything, when it seems like most of the assets the games have in common are the things they bought from the Unity store (Love Letter even changed the base Unity model to have a more appealing look)

I'm glad to see that they actually listened to criticism from fans on things like Setsuna’s design (I love her newest look and I hope it’s the final one). From design alone she’s already a more interesting protagonist, and she looks like the sort of character you’d actually enjoy playing as

Not sure I totally buy the claim that it was all done in two weeks, but even if it was over the span of months, that’s still miles better than YanSim’s six years

Knowing that Dr. Apeis has already ditched one project I’m staying open to new information on this, but as of right now I’m looking forward to playing the demo!

Overall: A lot of the hate against the game and the dev are unnecessary, but some is justified and we shouldn’t blindly defend everything he does (seriously, you can admit that the character designs are shit. no one is going to stone you for it).  There are a lot of improvements Dev could make, both on the game and on his behaviour towards fans.

I think that the biggest improvement would be for the game to just stop taking itself so seriously. At this point, it’s so full of memes, cringy google translate names, excessive edginess, and gags that it may as well just be a fun ridiculous anime game instead of a serious horror game. I feel like taking this approach could make it more successful (plus, it doesn’t really have a lot of horror elements aside from the gore)

There are a lot of cases of people taking things too far. Like spamming YanDev with explicit gore/animal abuse, trying to swat him, spamming volunteers with weird porn, trying to hack into volunteers’ accounts (including bank accounts), etc. That is going way too far, no matter how awful or pathetic you think a person is. If you are doing these kinds of things, you are doing more harm than Dev or his volunteers

Attacking YanDev’s appearance is unnecessary and not related to his behaviour or skills. Same with the chalice memes

However, I’ve seen a lot of YanDev’s defenders lashing out against “gremlins”, lumping all of them in with the kinds of people who do these things. If you check r/Osana, you’ll see that most if not all of the people there condemn this behaviour: the gore and porn spammers are a loud minority (and i’m willing to bet most of them are the basement-dwelling losers from KiwiFarms and 4Chan)

Attacking and/or spamming fans who are just trying to enjoy the game is also unnecessary. Someone liking a video game you don’t like is not doing you any harm. Be mature and move on

I’m not sure if some of what I’ve said above is 100% accurate so if anyone actually read this and has evidence against it then feel free to add

I think that’s about all I have to say on that. Again, i don’t know if it will change anything in the fandom but i really just wanted to get this off my chest

[migleefulmoments]

Let me help you understand the “confusion” over CDAN’s Blind

Crazy Days and Nights mentioned Darren and Mia in a podcast and then wrote a blind on his website. The cc fandom is confused and I want to take a moment and explain it for those who are looking for the truth.

First the Podcast mention:  

mmack0621 @ajw720 I mentioned trouble in paradise, but this is what Enty said so no one can get mad at us & think we made it up. He said last night quote "Oooo...a little speculation, a little gossip that's probably gonna turn into a blind item tomorrow. But I think DC might be having some marriage issues. He has not been going out with his "wife" lately. He has been heading to events solo. So we'll have to see how that goes. " It was 36 minutes into about a 42 minute podcast. It caught my attention because D is one of the people that he rarely has gossip on. Who knows what's going on?! 🤷‍♀️

The Blind:

Now the MOST IMPORTANT PART: CDAN’s Disclaimer 

“CRAZY DAYS AND NIGHTS IS A GOSSIP SITE. THE SITE PUBLISHES RUMORS, CONJECTURE, AND FICTION. IN ADDITION TO ACCURATELY REPORTED INFORMATION, CERTAIN SITUATIONS, CHARACTERS AND EVENTS PORTRAYED IN THE BLOG ARE EITHER PRODUCTS OF THE AUTHOR’S IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY. INFORMATION ON THIS SITE MAY CONTAIN ERRORS OR INACCURACIES; THE BLOG’S PROPRIETOR DOES NOT MAKE WARRANTY AS TO THE CORRECTNESS OR RELIABILITY OF THE SITE'S CONTENT. LINKS TO CONTENT ON AND QUOTATION OF MATERIAL FROM OTHER SITES ARE NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CRAZY DAYS AND NIGHTS.”

CDAN admits it publishes fiction-LIES- and items which are “figments of the author's imagination”. That should tell you enough about the viability of the stories Enty publishes and yet, Abby and the cc fandom have a long history of accepting CDAN’s blinds as truth regardless of how illogical and irrational they are. Enty is claiming that Darren and Mia are having problems in their marriage and his only evidence is his suggestion that Darren is attending events without his wife. Missing an event hardly proves marital discord, but the claim isn’t even true! Mia has been by Darren’s side for the vast majority of the events he’s attended since the wedding. The only event she didn’t go to that I can think of in the last 2 months is the quick trip to NYC for the Barry’s event.  Maybe she missed another event but certainly not more than 1 or 2.  

The interesting thing is that the cc Anons KNOW this blind isn’t true and a few have brought it up to Abby. Instead of outright rejecting the blind as a lie, Abby is calling it “confusing” as if that is a position one can take when confronted with lies. 

CDAN fabricates gossip in order to drive traffic to it’s website and pod.  It’s PR 101-write salacious items and the gossip-hungry people will come running. Enty doesn’t care if it’s true, partially true or even a little true. He is relying on the fact that too many people in 2019 are willing to be conned, lied to and gaslighted if only it will prove their previously held beliefs are true. Enty doesn’t care that he’s hurting real people or that he’s lying. Lying and hurting people is what he does so it is up to the reader to be smarter than he is and protect oneself from his lies and keep oneself from being scammed. 

Here are some of the cc comments in reverse chronological order for context:. 

Hi nonnies! Seems to me she’s mostly everywhere. He did get the prior nyc trip on his own. Ofc he’s there now for her step brother’s wedding.

But the blind was confirmed to be him. I’m just reporting the news. I think collectively we are confused.

*********************************************

She is keeping her anons together by making this a “we” thing- “We are all in this together”.  Abby is saying  “Don’t think for yourself, I’ve done that already and I’ve determined that we are collectively confused”.   

Anonymous asked: One of the gossip web sites has recently posted about a closeted actor and his wife having marital problems. A couple of replies assumed it to be D/darren C. Who plants these items? Is the purpose just to get publicity?

ajw720 answered: According to @mmack0621 it’s absolutely d as he was also mentioned on the podcast. Why? We don’t know.

***************************************************

Here Abby gets it confused. She has an erroneous understanding about how PR works and how gossip sites get their information. A successful working actor does not want to be on CDAN. While all publicity is good publicity, being on a website that routinely publishes salacious lies is not the kind of publicity Darren wants or needs. Enty makes money by getting clicks on his website- he uses Google Ads and listeners to his podcast who listen to commercials from his “sponsors” (I presume, I’ve never listened to the pod nor will I ever, even for research. The other option would be, he charges subscribers a subscription fee). Darren gets nothing positive out of Enty posting blinds that say his marriage is in trouble or he’s gay. Celebs have enough trouble getting their truth out into this gossip-drive society, the ls thing they want is to do it through blinds on a site that admits it makes up stories for clicks. Abby likes to pretend that Darren or his team or Mia submit info to gossip sites and call paparazzi because it fits HER storyline.  LIke Enty, Abby, 

“Publishes rumors, conjecture, and fiction. in addition to accurately reported information. Nearly 100% of the situations, characters and events portrayed on Abby’s blog are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously”.      

Let me be clear, NOBODY on Darren’s team -including his wife- ever call the paparazzi or gossip websites. They all have much more effective and efficient methods of getting the information they make public.  Gossip sites exist solely to make money for their owners. Struggling D-list actors and reality stars have learned to manipulate tabloids in order to get their own names and images published but anyone of Darren’s caliber has better ways of doing that that allow him 100% of the control. When you call a tabloid or a pap, you lose control of the narrative. Celebs in 2019 have access to their own PR teams, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and if they wanted to have a longer conversation, someone of Darren’s status would have access to much more traditional and reliable media organizations like TV networks, NYT, WaPO, even People Magazine which is on another level from CDAN.  l is calling Enty though I am sure that ccers are sending him “intel” they fabricated.   

klainecentric Now I'm interested in which article, I don't want my bubble to burst and my hope to dwindle, but this is good news. The last couple of RC events were very telling.

leka-1998 @klainecentric you can find it here.

ajw720 Apparently on the podcast he was mentioned by name and he said trouble in paradise. Not sure what paradise he’s referring to. M is anything but paradise and that fraud of a marriage is a nightmare. But if this is perhaps d&c hinting there’s trouble. I’m cool with it. But not getting my hopes up.

Taking what we know that CDAN lies and the fact that we have seen plenty of evidence that Darren and Mia have been attending events together, the rationale and logical conclusion is that Enty fabricated the story in order to get clicks on his website and listeners to his podcast. The logical conclusion is that it is a flat-out lie. It is not rational to conclude that something “confusing” is going on.

Why the cc fandom never learns from their mistakes. 

This is another concrete example of Abby taking everything as confirmation bias instead of accepting she is wrong and learning from that.  She has been pushing a narrative that Darren and Mia are going to get divorced sometime around their first anniversary and everything is simply confirmation bias for that narraitive.  This is a perfect example of how the rationale and intelligent resonse to CDAN’s comment is to Once again, the fandom is trying to shove a square peg into a round hole and it just doesn’t fit. 

Another important lesson needs to be addressed: It is true that sometimes a lot of tabloids will start pushing stories that someone has cheated. We can use the example of Justin Timberlake this week.  Justin was seen at a party holding hands with his costar. Lots of media sites ran the story because there were photos (X) and Justin Apologized to Jessica about his lapse in judgment.  Fox, CNN, Yahoo Entertainment, Fox Business, NBC 10, People, TMZ, US Weekly, and The Guardian-just to name a few-ran the story.  Compare that to CDAN’s claim that Darren’s marriage is in trouble-the ONLY site who ran the story is a site who admits on its front page that it “PUBLISHES RUMORS, CONJECTURE, AND FICTION. IN ADDITION TO ACCURATELY REPORTED INFORMATION, CERTAIN SITUATIONS, CHARACTERS AND EVENTS PORTRAYED IN THE BLOG ARE EITHER PRODUCTS OF THE AUTHOR’S IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY”.    

[tarotjourney2021]

6:16 PM Last day of work before going on leave

I think this is the tower moment.. the moment they told me about.. that I am gonna have a big change which will scare me.. i think this is is.. but contarary to what I thought before, the change won't happen to me, the job won't call me back while I do nothing, this job might try to insult me again as a second blow.. and this tower of the 360 review.. which i can hear Areen's mean thoughts of how can I kick her harder.. this backstabbing bitch! She will get her karma.. and the karma will be through my work.. i will start publishing all the links and things I have been featured in.. so everyone knows how good I am.. and this my work will be the karma.. the karma won't come from an outside source.. the karma.. is me..! it's me bitch!

I think Minnow Pond said something to that effect.. he said that you will see someone get their karma.. but the karma could be through me getting my success! And that's exactly what I'm gonna do Chris.. I am done with this fool journey.. I need to step into the magician.. I need to level up.. to get my 'glow up'

very very very cheesy.

anyways,

The same applies to the tower.. i am the one who will take control of the tower and be the one not only jumping out of it willingly, but creating it. I will manifest what I want, and would work very hard and strategically towards it.. I will update the website.. most of it is done anyways.. just the last stop of details and making decisions and doing a bulk of work done... okay.. i have a lot to do.. but at least I know that i started and did a shit load of work before.. and it got me here.. how many times did I design and redesign the website.. even though everyone tells me it looks great.. but do i let that be and work on the technical parts of it.. like the shop or the blog or to let people share my stuff on social media..I mean! there is a lot to be done.. but that's okay.. let's push ourselves to the next phase.. because this is the price to be paid to manifest this.. I want the kind of employer that is not only impressed that I have a website, but can appreciate that I have a terrific website.. levelling up requires that, I need to ask for better things. and just because I like to research the hell out of things, I decided to watch every video ever made on youtube on manifestation, scripting.. add it to a long list.. bingewatch it as I organize my youtube videos.. so I can give them to the two editors.. and this way the youtube channel can keep going..

I will still try to keep my deadline of publishing a youtube video today.. cause I need to be consistent and to be consistent I need to stick to the plan.. the plan is good.. land the plan..or take off.. do something.. stop hovering.. stop doing things half-assed and congratulating yourself for getting out of bed, cause you have mental health issues.

We have a therapist now, so she will be helping with that, and also I am still willing to put in the work.. i am the king of pentacles.. despite the turblant water.. i am still focused on my pentacles.. still willing to sit here.. after breaking down in tears after the 360 review.. after all the work I have been doing.. and letting these as%###$@ make me work regularly long hours.. sometimes until 10 at night or midnight.. only to make me redo it all again.. because they changed their mind! Making me go on a saturday, across town in the ttc to take pictures with my personal camera and come back home at 5.. shaking with exhaustion.. and i only had sunday to work before i start the work day again.. and I wonder why I am always sick.. i work myself to the bone.

Even now.. even now .. when not even an hour ago.. i told myself to relax and sleep on the hammock to calm myself down and remind myself that the positive comments from the CEO, my manager, even my new manager can't stop saying great things about me. But you know how it is.. it is the corporate world, 360 reviews is the perfect time for anyone who has been hating on you, and to be honest with your taurus anger when someone disrespects you, especially when it involves racism, it boils my blood. And everyone wants to treat me like I am an idiot, when they hear my accent, or being black, an immigrant, single in my 30s... a lot of back-handed comments are exchanged.. racist 'jokes'.. even a suggestion of a black face from that bitch.. when the manager asked for suggestions for Halloween costumes as a team for the office virtual mandatory party. And both our TWO managers were in the meeting.. and none of them said anything! Shouldn't you 'manage' this?

I need to show them in action, very quietly without a lot of chatter that they don't get to do that.. they don't get to allow this kind of behaviour.. coming from the CEO herself and her daughter..

But I need to win all the way through, I need to keep my cool, they automatically win, if I lose it and start openly misbehaven.. the best insults are the ones that are given with class.

So what's the plan.

I will do the whole ritual thing, candles and all.

and then get to work.

Hopefully by the time I am done watching youtube, the files will be sent to my editors.. and youtube the youtube channel will start picking up soon. I think I already said that.

Then!

I will buy the sparkling water thing.. I feel the problem with staying focused is that I need hydration and somehow I can't stand tab water these days.. and I can't have enough of sparkling.. so let's make the investment.. you are officially on leave for the next two weeks, you will be able to post all those things to facebook market and sell them, and put the money back into the little investments we need to do now..

Like the investment in my time and energy I am gonna have to make to meet my illustration deadline and my youtube deadline

Let's start with youtube deadline.. I need to build the trust in myself.. by keeping this promise.. I will publish a video on youtube every week on Thursday 11 AM. I know I already missed the time deadline.. but it is still thursday.. so let's do the easiest thing to do and post it.. doesn't matter we only have 25 subscribers.. 26!! sorry!!!!  so no one is watching.. you need to jerk the giant algoritm awake and the only way to awaken this dragon is by meeting this deadline.. over and over and over again.. and I want you to have those posters of red crosses all around to see the progress that I am making in everything and keep things balanced.. and after this time off i want it to be clear in your mind.. what we are postponing, what we are focusing on.. my art.. my clay.. building this as a business... slowly but surely.

ok, after the youtube video.. i will give myself the deadline of 45 minutes.. so we are done.. i might even make it 30 minutes.. because i want to test my theory.. that people now want youtube videos to be as short as possible maybe a minute or two.. because youtube videos now compared to what's out there on social media feel like 2-hour long movies.. we have adapted to everything being tik-tok fast and crazy, so we can't sit through anything this long.. i personally can't! So I have to assume I am not alone, and I would like to attract those people on youtube, the people that I can almost feel their pulse.. they are tuned to me, can get what I like.. feel like they know me and I know them, feel like it is a warm hug between dear friends they found each others but never knew one another. I want that. But to get there.. I need to throw a lot of things out there and assess, adjust and move forward.. I need to be more like the chariot, Cancer, my moon sign. i need to flow like water.. move a way a little bit from my Taurus ways.. my Virgo rising better pay attention to all these little details and I should give her back the hermit mode... where I can retreat into my introverted shell and stay here for a little bit, until i start to figure things out.. I am actually almost flattered to know that the magician is also a card for virgo.. and it is fitting that I am stepping into this magician.. literally.. googling magic stuff.. and petition examples.. and also physically by actively going after the laid down plan.. the plan i kept changing and working out in my head..I feel for years, but never taking a real step towards it, but now it's time. It's been long enough.. the plan is ready.. let's go.. not apologetically... not kinda.. all in! ALL #!@#@$ IN!!

That's what I promised that I would do when I had this 'awakening or whatever', that to pay back the universe lady for seeing me for what I am and what I can be, that I won't give up on myself.. and I will stand up for that voice in my head that's trying to kill me and this feeling of longing to die. I even had the urge to die today.. to give up. and wish I was gone, out of laziness more than anything.. self pity and look-at-me bo-ho.. i know i sound mean.. and I am probably an asshole on some level(s). I should be compassionate.. i'm sorry towards myself first.. I know that i am healing from a trauma. I am better, but still all over the place.. i am so stressed and so alone.. i have been a lone for too long.. i realize now since I moved to Canada 4 years ago, I got lazy on the friends front, settled into a small group of women, whom are nice, but are not my people.. they can part of my people.. but not the centre.. they should be on the side tables... I need to find the right people for me.. to give me warmth.. my life has been cold and lonely for too long.. being here alone.. starting my life over.. still in a way living a double life between the old traditions and between who i really I am and what I want..and what I have been raised on that I am not good enough to have it. Even though I know in my gut that I can have it. I used to have the dead belief in myself that I will have everything.. but something broke back in Sudan. The weight of the tradition or the culture.. the shari'a law.. and its unforgiving rules.. people and how cruel they can sometimes get with their racist misogynist lifestyles that they impose on me, with all their force... then the heart break.. I never thought anything could throw me off like that, but it did. I guess I was already beaten enough when his blow came.

He too is another person I need to be on that mountain.. on top of it.. so he doesn't miss me. he can't miss me. and I don't think it will take me as long as I think to get on the top of the mountain. The hermit is already on the top of the mountain.. but I need to trust that I need to get myself mentally there.. so this physical world follows.

But to get there... i need to focus on myself.. forget about all of those people who shook your ego. You have to shake them off.. and put your head down to pray.. even though we don't pray .. but we need to lay down the details on that little prayer ritual I made up. A small part of me thinks it is ridiculous, because it is. But the other part loves it.. it gives me strength and I can almost swear.. actually i can swear.. that it was working.. the difficult days ahead smoothed out... and the dragon weren't as scary as I thought. I got a few little chips of gold every here and there.. and now I want to go for the real deal.

I need to be Indiana Jones one more time though, I know I am tired of it.. like literally tired.. my eyes are red.. and my body is aching.. couldn't because of all the crying with myself after work. I mean today is my last day of work before time off.. and I thought judging my surprising positivity this year, I thought I will be with a glass of wine celebrating by now... but I think knowing that rest is coming soon, my body is collapsing.

And true to my nature I am pushing her a little bit more. But we will rest I promise.. your cut off time is 10 PM! Then you can do whatever the hell I want. Maybe if it's not raining lay down in the hammock I need it.. I am tired.. it was so nice for a few minutes.. then I was again restless to start working again.

am I losing my mind?

[theconservativebrief]

Dan Nosowitz was scrolling through Instagram when he saw it: an ad for a cooking device whose sole function was to heat up raclette cheese.

“I had to click through because I had no idea what it actually was,” he explains. “Finding out that an algorithm believed I would be interested in a discount ‘traditional Swiss-style electric cheese melter’ is sort of comfortably bumbling. It’s like watching a Roomba bonk into a wall.”

Whether the humor inherent in the ad comes from the fact that the gadget is so oddly specific, or because raclette is an incredibly high-maintenance cheese and therefore hardly a common grocery item for most people, is difficult to say. What we do know, however, is that the complicated set of algorithms that serve targeted ads on social media are the most brutal, most incisive owns of our time.

In Nosowitz’s case, he figures he likely saw the raclette warmer because he’s a food writer who Amazon surely knows has previously browsed cooking tools on its site. That’s because Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, and the rest of the internet track your every keystroke and will then use your history to show you things they think will make them money. So it’s no wonder that it feels so deeply personal when we get targeted ads for, say, “dressy sweatpants,” colonoscopies, underwear whose selling point is that they are easy to take off, preparing for your own funeral, or, somehow the biggest attack of all: tickets to Jagged Little Pill: The Musical.

The simplest explanation for why targeted ads are so creepily intimate: Your phone, your computer, and the internet in general contain a gargantuan amount of information about you. Google, for instance, knows essentially every website you have ever gone to in your life, and thanks to geolocation can tell where you live, where you work, and where you’ve traveled and when. Credit card companies know what you buy, and the brands that sell those items can use that data to predict the things you’ll buy in the future — in Target’s case, it can tell that you’re pregnant before even your family knows.

There are ways to prevent at least some of this, but the more the internet entrenches itself in our lives, the more difficult and time-consuming it is to opt out. The consequences are, of course, potentially democracy-shattering. For our purposes here, however, the thing in danger of being shattered is our self-esteem.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, who has written a book on how the internet uses your data, has himself experienced the strangeness of being targeted by a Facebook ad for hair loss cream despite never having posted anything about balding.

“It was a little like being in a Seinfeld episode,” he explains. “I had never worried about my hair and always thought hair products were a total waste of money. And now I had to wonder, ‘Am I crazy? Should I actually be taking a product for hair loss?’” (He, however, ended up deducing that it was probably because two-thirds of men start losing their hair by the time they’re 35, and that the ad simply targeted all men around that age.)

I just got a Facebook ad for hair loss product. Are they using my pictures to figure out I am balding? I am pretty sure there is no other way, using my internet behavior, for them to know that.

— Seth Stephens-Davidowitz (@SethS_D) March 29, 2018

Facebook, undoubtedly the platform with the worst and most prolific targeted ads, said in a memo this April that while it allows companies to target their ads to users that fit a certain profile, it keeps users’ actual identities private from them.

But companies are able to target specific people by other means, namely through sending Facebook a list of emails, which Facebook can then use to find associated accounts. If you’ve ever bought anything from, say, Urban Outfitters, the brand could use the email you used to either make the purchase online or the one you gave at the checkout counter to specifically target you. And if you happened to be browsing Glossier.com, while still logged into Facebook, you might return to the social media app to find ads for Boy Brow.

Plus, the blog post doesn’t mention the fact that marketers can take advantage of your data that isn’t simply demographic — it theoretically could, for instance, reach users who seem to match a specific personality type or emotional state, thereby taking advantage of already vulnerable people. So ads for funeral preparations or musicals about mid-’90s female angst could be more than just a coincidence and instead referendums on your actual current mood.

The most horrific item I have ever seen in a targeted Facebook ad was a sweatshirt emblazoned with a bunch of Celtic knots that implied the superiority of having “Jennings blood.” Ignoring the possible white supremacist connotations, the ad was ironic mostly because you can buy the exact same sweatshirt replaced with literally any last name that sounds vaguely Irish and about a zillion other versions, too. “God made the strongest and named them Rubin,” reads one. “Never underestimate the power of a person with name’s Brooke,” shouts another, despite the fact that this sentence does not make sense.

It’s obvious why this specific ad showed up on my feed: Facebook knows that my last name is Jennings, and marketers can easily target users with such information. What’s more complicated is how the hell all those last names ended up on a sweatshirt.

To be clear, they didn’t. The reason so many T-shirts and sweatshirts with oddly specific phrases is because online clothing companies have tasked algorithms with the heavy lift of actually filling in the specifics and photoshopping those results onto digital images of clothing. The sweatshirts themselves don’t physically exist until you hit “purchase.”

Michael Fowler had been in the T-shirt business for 20 years before creating a simple computer code that would change his life in 2011. It took a common phrase, such as “Kiss Me, I’m a [blank],” compiled hundreds of thousands of words from digital dictionaries, created a list of phrase variations using those words, and then generated images of T-shirts with each phrase. According to The Hustle, Fowler’s company went from just 1,000 T-shirts that were designed by actual humans to more than 22 million code-generated ones. Through targeted Facebook ads, he was eventually able to sell 800 a day.

Unfortunately, his success was not the reason Fowler would make international headlines. Two years later his algorithm was responsible for shirts that read “Keep calm and rape a lot,” among other disturbing and misogynistic variations on the famous World War II slogan. Fowler said he had no knowledge of the items, and in fact, they’d been available for more than a year before anyone noticed. But even though he quickly deleted the offending shirts, his company still ended up folding.

Robot-written word salad T-shirts, however, have managed to become one of the internet’s purest inside jokes. On the subreddit r/TargetedShirts, members share the most egregious versions they come across, be they weirdly antagonistic (“Walk away, this forklift operator has anger issues and a serious dislike of stupid people”), uncomfortably sexual (“I don’t need therapy, I just need to get f#ed in public by fourteen werewolves”), birthday month-related (“Never underestimate an old man who is also an air force veteran and was born in November”), or utterly nonsensical (“Good girls go to heaven, January girl go hunting with Dean”).

The sub even has its own parody versions, like “These titties are protected by a skinny white guy in his mid-thirties who wears DC shoes, yells at me in public and is addicted to percs who was born in February,” or “Only heros with an IQ of 121, work as a pizza delivery driver, have 3 spoons of sugar in their coffee and love reptiles & mice, were born in March by C-section 2 weeks before their due date.”

Its founder, David Moreno, launched the subreddit just ten months ago, but it already has more than 40,000 subscribers. He explained to Vox that the first time he saw a targeted ad, back in 2011 or 2012, “it did fuck with my brain for a while because it had my last name and month of birth and at the time I didn’t realize what was going on.”

These days, however, the practice makes sense to him. “Funnily enough, I work in marketing, so while it might seem like a desperate strategy, it is actually a very good way to target a very specific group of people without spending too much cash,” he said.

The best versions, of course, are the ones seen in the wild. The sub is often populated by surreptitiously photographed people in the offending shirts, like this one, with comments that lightly roast the wearer. They’re the best because they are the saddest — the catalog of folks who were not only owned by the algorithm, but scammed by it.

That’s the other part of what it’s like to see a hyper-targeted ad for something incredibly on-brand: sometimes they read us more clearly than any actual humans. This is an inherently depressing thought, considering that this is sort of the job of the people we love and the society we live in. But the more intimate our phones and our data become in our lives, it might increasingly be the case.

The prevailing cynical attitude towards targeted ads — tweets that say things like, “i just got an ad for preparing for your own funeral, what are you trying to say to me youtube” — can sort of be compared to the FBI agent meme of the past year and a half or so. The idea is that every internet user has their own personal agent monitoring their behavior through their devices, but instead of this being incredibly creepy, the joke is that the agent acts as a friend or frustrated mentor to the subject.

me: (sitting back down on my bed with a bowl of chips ready to binge a new series) hey so what does “fbi” stand for anyway

fbi agent inside my computer: uh Faraway.. Buddy.. Insideyourcomputer

me: cool. so what do u wanna watch next

fbi agent: i heard grace and frankie is fun

— jonny sun (@jonnysun) February 1, 2018

A Mashable article earlier this year explored the surprising poignance of the meme: “The agent wants the best for their subject,” writes its author Chloe Bryan. “The narrator, conscious of how boring their life must be to observe, tries to entertain the FBI agent. They have pleasant conversations. They develop a forbidden friendship. They become quiet, lightly subversive allies.”

In both cases, we’re taking our deepest technological anxieties — that the internet stores and sells our data and that the government is spying on us — and turning them into lighthearted jokes. Which is fair! It’s a lot more fun to pretend Big Data is actually just there to dunk on our most embarrassing shopping habits instead of manipulating U.S. elections or contributing to the rising wealth of the world’s richest people.

Which means there will probably come a day when an ad on Instagram for an enormous cheese-warming gadget targeted specifically to a person using a complex set of his internet data will no longer be funny. But we may as well laugh while it still is.

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Original Source -> The joy and horror of targeted Facebook ads

via The Conservative Brief