#me writing this post: and I will add another link here for my own enrichment!

[imminent-danger-came]

Who do you think will try and help MK grapple with the issue of being the harbinger of chaos? (Obviously all his friends, but who would play the biggest role?)

Considering that some of the next season will presumably take place in the underworld, and that he‘s the only one who actually KNOWS about it; Macaque is actually a decently strong contender imo.

Which would be really fun- they‘re one of my favorite duos (MK is a bitch exclusively to Macaque and I love him for it) but I‘m holding out hope for some Sandy/Pigsy!

Since the curse of the scroll called them monstrosities, and they both seem to have lived with that kind of discrimination they would also have experience with figuring out your own identity despite it.

So them unknowingly helping MK when their past is revealed sounds fun!

And the MK‘s mental health takes a turn for the worse again in the special obviously. We can‘t have him become to stable after all!

Also, (sorry if you already talked about this before) What connection do you think the curse has to MK? If I‘m not misremembering anything he is the only one where it said 'we' (unless MK was in denial about something). Everybody else was 'you', but MK also accidentally said "we help people!". Even in the curses final scene it says "then prove us wrong." Us being the curse and MK, since he did end up believing what it said.

Do you think there is actually some credence to the curse calling MK the harbinger of chaos? Or is it just saying what MK is feeling since he caused so much damage on accident? Is MK being that harbinger actually destiny, or more something along the lines of a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Answering this ask with another, because both kinda go into the same thing with the curse/memory:

-

So, in my dreams, Sandy is the one to help MK cope with his Monkey Demon identity for reasons I go into in this post (of course I want Mei to be the one to talk MK down initially, but as far as post-breakdown goes Sandy is my top contender—which those two work together to comfort MK a lot anyways, like in 2x06 and 3x04). But, if we had a Pigsy/Sandy tag-team duo while also going into their pasts, that would be awesome! Literally couldn't ask for anything more.

Macaque could also be interesting, being the one who was there for MK in 4x09 and 4x10, but he's also already given his advice: MK doesn't only have two choices, and nobody can decide who he is for him. But, well, the curse (who I think is undeniably part of MK) was the one who gave MK the title of "harbinger of chaos"—it wasn't anyone else. MK essentially gave himself that title. This would be a super interesting way for MK's arc to go, if it's headed this sort of direction, where MK can certainly decide who he wants to be, but what if he doesn't believe in that person, you know?

((Of course Macaque can offer up more advice, I'm just not sure Macaque advice is what MK needs right now.))

Next on the agenda: whatever the fuck MK is.

So I have this collection of screenshots where I highlight MK's weird connection with the underworld throughout the seasons, and I specifically want to call attention to the scroll emanating from MK not once, but both times he enters the scroll:

Bonus Shot of MK as part of his reflection motif, where his face lines up with the skull on screen:

MK: "Again!? Remind me how this 'game' is supposed to convince me I'm not destined to turn into an evil monkey demon thing again? Cause every option I pick takes me to this, same, screen!"

(4x10 The Jade Emperor) (Every option MK picks leading him to the same end? I'll take foreshadowing for 500!)

Which, the skull in the TV is very similar to LBD's skull in the Demon Revealing Mirror from 2x02:

All this to say: the Curse/the scroll and MK are connected somehow, meaning I'd take a gander that MK is also connect to memory in some form.

MK: "You're not my friend—you're NOT me!" Curse MK: "Sure I am! I'm your best friend, well, closest at least! I know more about you than you'll even admit—to yourself, or to others."

(4x07 Pitiful Creatures)

-

I think you could make the argument (which I'll probably write a full-fledged theory post on at some point), that Lady Bone Demon's original power source for her mech was MK, then switching to the Samadhi Fire later when that comes into play. LBD in ROTSQ, s2, and s3 threatens to erase the memory of Wukong/the world/Macaque, which is something that is notably absent in the s3 special. MK (plus maybe Wukong) being the original power source would help to explain why LBD wanted MK (+ Wukong) all throughout s3, and why she didn't immediately go ahead with her plans. She only says "Now, I will undo the memories of this world!" when she's confident that she has both the staff and MK. If MK were a being related to memory, using him as a power source could be a real possibility for how LBD originally planned to erase the memories of the world—then moving to the Samadhi Fire to create a "clean slate" when that became an option.

Now, although it's based entirely in conjecture, I do think MK potentially has the power to "rip the memory of people from this world". We know so little about what MK actually is that a lot could be possible!

ANYWAYS.

When it comes to "is MK destined to become a harbinger of chaos or was it just the curse echoing his own doubts", I think it's both! After all, there's "a reason [he] was at the center of all these stories, a reason [he] can harness the power of the Monkey King himself!". We don't know that reason yet, but I'm inclined to believe that it's because MK is connected to the underworld/the scroll/memory in some way, like I've mentioned. However, I also think MK's own flaws and self-doubt will contribute to his walk down destiny lane, and MK will put on his own chains so to speak.

One of the major contributing factors of MK's arc has been his own lack of belief in himself (in contrast with his total belief in his friends), so that HAS to be resolved eventually. When it comes down to it, that's at the core of his character—it's why he can feel he's both too weak and too strong across seasons and still feel distinctly like MK. So, that same lack of belief is probably going to be what drives his decent into the role of "harbinger of chaos"—that and a number of other things I'm sure. His friends, Monkey King, his identity, his responsibility, destiny—it's all gonna culminate somewhere.

Plus these eyes haven't turned up yet,

(they also show up in MK's 4x03 vision), and we don't really have any concrete explanation for what the curse was/is, or why MK specifically was the one who could destroy it ("It wasn't in my power—it was in yours."; but maybe Monkey King could have finished it off after it had been weakened?).

There's a lot of arc left and a lot of things we don't know!

[voltstone]

A YELLOW DRESS FORGOTTEN | TWDG Retelling (Remastered - 2024) MASTER CONTENT POST

Hello! (And hello again to the TWDG fandom. At least, to anyone who remembers this fic.)

I'm VoltageStone. Still a shit uploader. I'm trying, and yes, this is one of the fics that has been in the works for...way too long, but at the same time..., glad I waited for my writing to get better?

This, quite simply, is my love-letter to the games, and to my Clementine. It's the one story I've wanted to get right, time and time again.

Especially since the comics have come out. Even though I've come to the conclusion that the comics are divorced from the games, because it's only one person's Clementine (and an...interesting interpretation of her at that), the comics did pull me away from the games for a little bit there.

But now I'm back. And I do intend to get to Season 4 this time. To finish this.

It'll take time, but I do feel ready now. I really have wanted to write out my Clementine's story, and have something that I can read back on rather than whatever Skybound's doing.

And honestly? While most of this is a self-indulgence thing, and it's because I'm bleeding my heart out here...

I do want more people to write about their Clementines. Cuz like... Maybe if there's enough people doing it, writing about their experiences, and not just the character as a whole... We'd get more enrichment from TWDG as a whole.

For anyone who wants to add on or talk about this, or follow along without having to subscribe to me, this fic will have its own tag (#aydf fic). So. If you're interested in just this, that'll be the place. :D

Anyway, now, for this specific update, this is a master post like the one I did for LYCOS (Wenclair fic). This isn't marked dead dove, but it is still a very...gritty fic. And it has a lot of very heavy themes.

It's a dark fic for different reasons, but a lot of the same. AYDF is what got me into writing gore, body & psychological horror, and the like. That being said, it's...also just a different beast.

Largely because I'm building off of what's in the games, so dead dove doesn't feel as appropriate for this.

Still. Might as well make a post here about its content. Any updates I do will be linked back to this.

So, for those who read this story before, I hope you enjoy, and thanks for sticking around through the years.

To any newcomers, to TWDG or other readers from other fics, I hope you enjoy. :)

-- -- --

Walkers. Muertos. Deadheads. Lurkers... The dead which roamed, they wore many names. Monster was yet another one. Though, Clementine knew most monsters didn't decay. Their hearts still throbbed. Their eyes, still with color. The monsters, still with words to asphyxiate.  Because she was one herself: a monster with fire in her breath, and eyes that burned her own Hell. She drank for her life. She drank to forget.

A thank-you to Telltale, a love-letter to Clementine as a character, and a passion project writing out my Clementine's story. Made by my blood, sweat, tears, and probably also mucous from the tears, but it's sanitized, I promise.

AO3 | FFnet | Wattpad | Quotev | RoyalRoad

Fic Layout:

Ep1 | Between S2 & S3. Ep2-5 | S3. Ep1.5 (Interlude) | S1, Between S1 & S2, Between S2 & S3. Ep6 | Between S2 & S3, Between S3 & S4. Ep7 | Between S3 & S4, S4. Ep8-15 | S4.

General Warnings:

Catharsis, Gore, Extreme/Graphic Violence, Fights, Murder, Horror, Body Horror, Angst, Trauma, a very Cynically Religious Clementine, Raider!Clementine, TWDG retelling (aka, a lot of the dialogue and canon-events will be here, or rewritten), (some, not a lot) Sexual Content (because it's a "growing up" thing not a horny thing, I promise, …and maybe sorta a little bit of how BPD and attachment issues do things), Violentine, a lot of homoeroticism, they are touch starved, Some fairytale symbolism, Louis will be protected and grow tf up.

Mental Health:

Alcoholism, Gambling Addiction, Addiction, Withdrawal, Relapse, Suicide Attempt(s), PTSD, Guilt, Survivor's Guilt, Rehabilitation, Psychosis, Child abuse, Parentification, and how that basically fucks Clementine in the head like a lot, and then A.J too because cycles and trauma, Borderline Personality Disorder, Trauma Trauma Trauma, and you'll never guess, a Clementine who really really really needs help and at least one (1) actual breathing adult in her life.

Oh which reminds me.

Finding guidance in adults who are already very much dead, and please Clementine, would you just bury the corpse?

…okay that's verging on dead dove, but if the game (almost) has an 8-year-old eat a dude's leg, and then a bigger dude get his head smooshed by a salt lick (which tastes gross, I dunno), I think it's still safe.

In Summary:

...okay I may have written a Carver's Clementine by accident bUT it was an ACCIDENT. My hand slipped. She's not evil, just a little demented some days, and bitter on the better ones.

I am half-joking. My hand didn't slip.

She does make the comic's Clementine look like an angel, though. So. There's that.

Anyway, if it's not clear, the tldr is this is my playthrough, and thusly my canon Clementine, just with the story tailored for indulgence and narrative reasons. Cuz. …alcoholism. …and stuff.

Not a great person. Very troubled. But you know. Tis how addiction works.

Hope you enjoy. :) If you see my blood, sweat and tears stained in the writing, no you didn't.

[yaboylevi]

Hi! I love ur blog, especially ur Snk Metas and Ereri metas. What are your thoughts on the whole “Eren has always been like this” (always been evil or capable of great evils like genocide) that a lot of people seem to agree on? I’ve always had a hard time believing in that idea because we’ve been shown multiple times that Eren is capable of sympathy and empathy, so to say he’s ALWAYS been like this is wrong.

Hi! Thank you!!

Looking through my snk 121 tag I found that I have already received similar questions, so I’m gonna link one here if you want the short version of it. Even if it was something I wrote up right after the chapter was out, it’s not like my opinion has changed much... more like, my faith in Isayama writing a decent conclusion and explanation in regards to Eren has plummeted in the past year and a half.

But anyway, now we have some new information pertaining Eren, so I feel like I can add more on this moment and my take on it in light of such new perspective.

Let me preface this with: Eren hates what he’s doing, is despising every second, was scared of his future visions, often paralyzed, desperate to find a better solution than this, because he knows - let me repeat it - HE KNOWS this is horrifying. We had hints throughtout the story, but many have ignored them. For me, Eren going through grief and apologizing for something he hadn’t even done yet in chapters 131 was no shocker at all, but I guess some people may have actually been surprised, I don’t know. It was right there since the Marley arc and his breakdown over Sasha, but many have completely misinterpreted that scene, denying it was desperation that he was feeling, so it was nice to finally have confirmation. Kinda.

However, you know, Isayama doesn’t seem to have picked a side on his characterization of Eren. Or maybe there is still something that’s concealed, because everything we have seen, isn’t evething that has happened, and it doesn’t explain yet some things about Eren and, relevant to this post, why Eren has decided to give up and give in to his future self’s memories of destruction. I’m sorry, but Eren believing “there is no other way, other than killing the whole world’s population, because the future cannot be changed” due to some memories is not gonna cut it, especially because we haven’t seen him fight too hard against it. In my opinion, at least. Or maybe he did, but we haven’t been shown.

The most hopeful part of my heart wishes he is already trying to change things, in a very roundabout and secret way, but the tired and logical part is done hoping. After all, Eren is alternating between being hellbent on going through with rumbling the world, and being absolutely horrified by it. I’ve been getting whiplash every month for a couple of years now.

As for your actual question, and that line during the Paths Time Travel...

Let’s start from here, shall we? That whole conversation with Zeke in Paths was to Zeke what chapter 112 was to Mikasa and Armin, imo. Chapter 121, huh, same numbers...but anyways. I think I have already wrote it somewhere, but I believe Eren lied, and purposely hurt Zeke. To make him, and Mikasa and Armin, realize something and act accordingly, maybe against Eren himself.

In Mikasa’s case, the realization was gradual since then, because Eren’s lies kickstarted it immediately. In Armin’s case, I think we still haven’t seen the full potential of it, though it may come next chapter - and I mean the “You were influenced by Bertolt, an enemy” angle. I am surprised Armin hasn’t followed this reasoning in regards to Eren, who has three titans within him, none of them particularly allied with Paradis. We left Armin seeing Bertolt, who is, in turn, watching him. I wonder if a conversation won’t happen right off the bat in chapter 136.

Anyhow, Eren, in chapter 112, also very much hit Armin and Mikasa where it hurt them the most - which is the same thing he did to Zeke here, bringing up his hate for Grisha and how it was the only think really fuelling him, and went through all the effort of making him reconcile with Grisha. Mmm, sus. Am I the only one feeling it’s sus??? I really have to wonder if he doesn’t kind of want/need Zeke to stop him, just like I believe he did with Armin and Mikasa. After all, there was no need to antagonize them and make them have reasons to stop caring for him, if he didn’t want to be stopped.

So, if it wasn’t already clear, Eren is a big liar, and he’s good at it if you don’t know him (and Zeke, Armin, and Mikasa have proven they don’t know or understand him very well at times). His acting skills have been shown all the way back in the cabin scene when he was 8 years old and tricked those traffickers.

There is another layer to these lies that I’d like to touch upon, though.

The line you were inquiring about feels exactly like his “I am free” in chapter 112. He sounds so sure, but it is a freaking lie.

See how both Armin and Mikasa are confused by such a bold, out-of-the-blue statement, the same way Zeke asks Eren “Since birth?” because, like, what is that all even about?

Eren has been feeling trapped in his own future memories to the point that his freedom of choice even existing anymore has become a big question mark. There is no freedom in following the path you were shown.

Eren’s urge to save someone from “having their freedom solen” by “physically assaulting the perpetrators first” has never, ever meant that he was willing to or okay with sacrificing innocents. Quite the opposite, in fact. There have been whole arcs about that. About Eren freaking out over people dying for him, refusing to sacrifice friends for the bigger picture, grieving for or sympathizing with innocents losing their lives or having them destroyed by some bigger threat. That has not changed.

So the big question remains: Why?

With these outrageous and confident statements about himself, I don’t think Eren is merely lying to his interlocutor to change their perception of him. I think he is lying to himself as well in the meantime. It looks like it did the trick, or not - based on how you want to interpret it. He really has been dissociating hard during his rampage.

But it all depends on what Isayama's angle is with Eren. In 112 Eren seemed to believe his “I am free” statement because he had an instant reaction to Armin challenging it. At the same time, now that we also have chapter 130-131 to enrich our reading, there is no way Eren felt free into the choices he made after hearing Willy’s declaration of war. He saw a terrifying future, he hoped against hope that it would change, but felt powerless and gutted and desperate that all pointed to such a future being unchangeable. So I do wonder if maybe he didn’t end up lying to himself - subconsciously or not - that he is free... and that he is always been this way - a cold-blooded murderer who did it all for justice.

Zoom in on Eren forlornly watching himself as a kid show pure kindess to a girl who just went through the most traumatizing experience in her life.

For the matter, I don’t believe Eren “has always been this way”. I actually don’t believe he’s ever been that way. I don’t know why many(?) people just accept whatever Eren says at face value, ignoring all context surronding it.

As I posted very recently, it doesn’t make sense for Eren to go from one extreme to the other without a better excuse, or explanation, or a more believable writing of it...or a plot twist that I guess I will wait for for another 4 months:

Eren came to realize that outside the walls people are just...well, people. There are good ones everywhere, people who suffered just like him, people who deserve better, certainly don’t deserve to be caught up in the Rumbling, people who have lives, children, moms, loved ones. This is highlighted again in chapter 131, because maybe, when Eren brought it up in the basement with Falco and Reiner, people didn’t think he was being genuine. So Isayama shows us again that Eren truly believed that.

And yet, the chapter before, Eren put those very same people on the same level of Titans when he used to think Titans were scum, a nightmare sent to eat them alive, because he addressed them with “匹”, a derogatory counter when applied to people, because it is usually used for small animals.

The parallel to how he used to feel towards Titans is smacked in our faces, because in Japanese, it’s the same exact line. He now feels that way about people.

...What?

It doesn’t make sense, right?

Because really, the same way Eren’s first impulse in Marley was to save Ramzi when he was being beaten up (and threatened with a worse fate than some bruises), the same way Eren helped him regardless and again went against 3 full-grown men, it’s the same way Eren rushed to Mikasa’s rescue when he didn’t even know her... or the same way he pushed himself into a Titan’s mouth just to save Armin. it doesn’t come from a sentiment of “I need to punish these monsters because they are threatening me”. It comes from a natural, intrinsic need to help and save others. It is deeply saddening that at the end of this journey, with Ramzi, he just feels like this natural predisposition of his is just a fake and turns him into a hypocrite.

So for Eren to say he has always been that way while looking at his 8 years old self stabbing a human trafficker in the chest to save a little girl to try and explain why he’s killing innocent people who happens to be living alongside “the bad guys” is a false equivalence. Either it’s a lie Eren tells himself and to Zeke to make both of them believe this is what Eren is, and has always been, and there is nothing they could do to prevent it - in a sort of twisted liberation from guilt because “if I was always like this, then you and I both shouldn’t have expected anything different”...

...or it’s Isayama’s failed attempt at presenting a theoretical concept he liked and talked about in interviews, suddenly turning Eren into a poster boy for it and canceling previous sides of Eren’s complexity as a character. I would like to believe Isayama hasn’t lost his magic touch this badly, but every day I’m less sure of it.

My opinion, for what is worth, is that that line you quoted is something he said to trick Zeke into detaching himself from Eren and going against him - breaking the bonds of love all around him has been a very deliberate choice Eren has made post time-skip - and at the same time it’s something Eren is trying to believe himself, in a desperate attempt at explaining to his own conscience that he was destined to bring such destruction, that he was always capable of it, and that there is a sort of justice in it where there isn’t. And he knows, deep down. That’s why he dissociates in the end.

In a very twisted, self-deprecating way, Eren is a liar to everyone, himself included. He has become an unreliable narrator about himself. Eren has completely shut down because he cannot stand what he is doing.

And I would very much like to know why he gave up on trying to find a different solution, if that’s what it is that happened, and why he sounds like a different person every other scene he appears in, in the next 4 months.

[bnha-analysis-library]

I’d like to spend my vacation AT THE LIBRARY!

Welcome to the library~ 

[Important info under the cut. More will be added to it over time, so just come back to it every so often.]

Dear Readers and Fans,

This is a collection of knowledge that the writers, theorists, and analyzers of the BHNA Fandom took so much time out of their lives to share with us. First and foremost, I would like to thank such writers for creating the content that is shared here. I highly recommend checking them out. Without them, this blog would not exist. 

I will repost Metas, Analysis, Theories, and Character Studies. Occasionally headcanons. This account will have many manga spoilers, this is your chance to turn away and return at a later time unless you are alright with indulging yourself in such content. 

If you tend to favour a certain writer, I tag them in anything they create/added to, so you can read as many of their analysis and writings as you wish. I do my best to make sure that if any character has a major part of a meta or work, that they are also tagged so you can also spend hours scrolling through your favourites. 

If you come across an analyzer account for BNHA that I haven’t found yet, @ the library and I’ll take a peep and possibly comb their accounts to add to the library (I still need to go back through those accounts for many things I missed).  If you find any metas or analysis that are not in this library, I encourage you to please send them my way so I can add them. You are very much appreciated.

If you come across a post that is missing a tag I use commonly that you think would be helpful to the meta (foils, parallels, a character, LoV, UA students, pro heroes, hero society, quirk theory, etc.) send the post to me with the suggested tag so I can better sort it into it’s appropriate tags for everyone to find and enjoy.

Similarly, if you believe there is a new tag that would benefit the library, send me the metas and posts you believe would fit under it and what the tag is. I will work on incorporating the tag into the reblogs.  

For an added experience, I highly recommend going to the original poster or other rebloggers. Peek into the comments. Other people tend to make a lot of wonderful additions in the comments or in their own tagging section. 

NOTICE: There will be a number of posts that will (obviously) be outdated and old. Though they may be older, I still believe that they hold good for hindsight observation, and are still good to peer into, especially with the new insight on more recent events of the story. 

Every so often, I will reblog or post a link to a fanfic that I believe gives a deep insight and perspective into the point of view of a character or situation. If you find such a work, I highly encourage you link it to me with a(n optional) short (or long, if you wanna talk bout it) explanation. 

Please, enjoy this library to your heart’s content. I hope it brings you as much joy as it has me. 

I added some of the tags to this pinned post, so if you’d prefer to stay in one area of the fandom, you’ll have a bit more filtered search! (My apologies if you come across a work about a character that you wished not to see. I only tag characters if I believe them to be heavily linked to the corresponding work.) I do highly recommend exploring as much of the library as your time here allows. The knowledge here is quite enriching and bountiful. 

I would like to thank you for any support you give this archive. I appreciate every bit of it.

Don’t forget to also check out the creators of the the works here, for without them, this library, it’s knowledge, and insights would not be.

Open your heart and mind as you take the insight of these perspectives,

Love,

Lyrx

Any post I make concerning the library, asks, or any original post will be tagged with ‘Letters from Lyrick’. In the future, that will be another tag you can scroll through, if you wish it. 

I do have the ask box open. I will respond to any query you have to the best of my abilities and knowledge. 

[juliesoutsourcingblog]

DIGITAL MARKETING 101; CREATING CONTENT TO ENSNARE THE MILLENNIAL HEART

Content is everything.

Content is king.

As digital marketers, we’ve read this proclamation so many times it’s burned in our brains. It’s been said over and over and over- so much that when I see the word “content”, it’s the first thing that comes to my mind. And it certainly is true.

Content still is, and would almost certainly always be, king.

It’s the heart and soul of every campaign. It’s the building blocks where we build our social media following. It’s the magnet that attracts behind every advertisement. It sends our narrative, our story, our message across to our target audience.

It builds credibility.

It establishes authority.

It attracts- which, I think, is its most basic, yet most important function for those of us who use it primarily for marketing.

Now the question arises.

Who do we want to attract?

Of course it’d be nice to think that we could write a piece that would engage and attract the attention of every group and denomination. But we have to be realistic and set our goals accordingly. Every time we create content, just as we always think about the quality of the article, or the infographic, or the podcast that we are creating, we should also be keeping in mind the people who we want to be on the receiving end of our finished product.

For me, those people more-often-than-not, turn out to be millennials. Which then, brings us to the title of this article:

DIGITAL MARKETING 101; CREATING CONTENT TO ENSNARE THE MILLENNIAL HEART

When we think about millennials, most of us often scrunch up our noses and think, pumpkin spice latte, twitter rage, trophies, student debts, entitlement etc. Which is a bunch of harmful stereotypes that does not exactly promote generational unity, but let’s not talk about that.

Instead, let’s define the term: Millennial.

Contrary to popular belief, millennials are not teenagers. Millennials are young adults, whose age range typically fall between 18-35 years, sometimes older (different groups have different opinions on the exact range). To clear any misconceptions, here is the general agreed upon birth years for different generations:

And according to Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, Millennials are actually the largest generation in the U.S labor force.

Which is good news for me, and other digital marketers and content creators whose target audience are millennials, for the most part. Because it means that the people we are writing for are earning money. It sounds mercenary, but again- let’s be real here. The main reason why we do content marketing is to attract customers. Prospective clients.

Buyers.

Since the mediums wherein most content creators like me disseminate our pieces are found in the internet, it’s also important to know just how much of our intended audience actually have access in it.

Statista, a site that publishes statistical analysis of facts and figures recently released the following:

SHARE OF ADULTS IN THE UNITED STATES WHO USE THE INTERNET IN 2019, BY AGE GROUP

“The statistic shows share of internet users in the United States in 2019, sorted by age group. During the survey period, it was found that 100 percent of 18 to 29-year olds in the United States were internet users. Overall, 90 percent of the adult U.S. population accessed the internet.”

 –STATISTA

The glaring numbers don’t lie. A huge chunk of the majority of the people actually spending time in the internet are- you guessed it- young adults. Again, good news for us, right?

Well, yes.

Also, not entirely.

See, just because they are in the internet, or are in social media, does not mean that they are instantly going to fall heads over heels with our content. Just because I published an article on Tumblr, or posted a link to my blog on Facebook and they happened to see it, does not mean that millennials will automatically start sharing and hitting the like button. There’s always the chance that they might ignore it. Or worse, start hating it so much that I become a victim to the of the prevalent boycott movement, the cancel culture.

Yes, that’s a thing now.

Millennials are like a double-edged sword, so to speak.

There are a lot of pitfalls in making them our target viewers, to be sure. But if there’s one thing that I know from experience, it’s this: the gains and advantages that can be reaped from having millennials as an audience far outweighs the cons.

Having said all that, it’s also very important to remember that this generation is not exactly impossible to please. To capture their attention, there are few things that can be implemented that won’t necessarily cost any money- just a considerable amount of effort from our part.

1. Be conscious of political correctness

Generation Y is a generation of socially conscious individuals. Remember, that these people were raised in a time where equality and awareness are the main advocacies. I am not saying that we need to start turning our backs on our own political beliefs and start catering to theirs- let’s just be mindful enough not trip over sensitive issues in our content unless that is exactly what our purpose is. Let’s try to avoid publishing material that blatantly belittles or discriminates against people because of their race, body type, hair, gender, age, culture, fame (or lack thereof), social status etc. The general rule of the thumb is, to be nice as much as we can, and respect people the way that we want to be respected.

2. Be aware of trends

I’m not talking about eating Tide Pods or mimicking other challenges that are physically harmful. I’m talking about trends in technology, software and social media updates, fashion, clothing lines, restaurants, travel, philanthropic acts and charitable institutions, art, architecture. Of course, we all have our own niche to pay attention to, but with a little bit of effort, there’s an unending number of trending topics out there that are just waiting to be featured no matter what industry we are currently focusing on.

3. Stop sounding like salesperson

In my opinion, this does not just apply to millennials, but to every audience subtype. Stop being so obvious that you are selling something. Instead, tell a story. Make your viewers empathize. Be a friend- someone who actually cares and someone who they can relate to.

Don’t tell them:

Buy my shoes. They have great price compared to other shoes.

Instead, tell them:

I have worked in a corporate office almost all of my adult life, and have always worn heels. I have shed copious amounts of tears from bleeding blisters, and have since learned to always keep a supply of band-aids in my purse and a small first-aid kit in my desk. But what can I do? There’s an office dress code that I apparently agreed to when I signed my contract. I could quit- but then what’d I do for my bills? Should I tell my mother I am unemployed, because I didn’t like my shoes?

That’s when I started to think- why not make my own? Something that I can actually design, something that is comfortable and does not cost a house mortgage.

See where I’m going with this? With more time effort, it’s not impossible to make the part that advertises a certain product or service even more low-key than this. We have to make our selling points part of the natural flow of the narrative. Remember: subtlety is the key.

4. Use millennial buzzwords

Language is dynamic. It’s constantly changing. Time, geographical location, culture, events- these things and more affect the evolution of language so much and with such consistency that it’s almost impossible to determine its original state. As years pass by, people incorporate more and more slangs and new terminologies in their everyday lives.

I won’t say that it’s absolutely necessary to imbue our every article with terms like bop, lit, or salty- just that there are certain terms or “buzzwords” that we can add in our writing that would make us seem more like a peer than a lecturer. It sounds silly, I know, but the goal is to be relatable. Here are some of the words that millennials have been known to use in the past year that could also be used in creating content, within the right context, of course:

Spill the tea

The struggle is real

Trolls

Goals

On fleek

Clap back

Break the internet

Said no one ever

Slay

Adulting

Here’s another advice- we don’t necessarily have to over-stuff our sentences with these buzzwords. Let it flow naturally. The secret is to sound casual, not to overdo the whole thing and end up sounding silly.

5. Inform and educate

The last, but most certainly not the least. The internet, for most of its users, act heavily as a source of information. When people read articles, guides, tutorials, and other types of content, one of the main reasons that they do so, is to learn. But in the event when people are reading for entertainment purposes, it’s still important to make sure that they get to take something out of it.

And even when we end up writing about, say, the dazzling blue waters of a certain Polynesian island, or the breathtaking view atop the Grand Canyon, let’s make sure to inject bits and pieces of interesting facts and advice that would make the reading experience not just fun, but also enriching in a way that would encourage visitors not just to return, but to also share our material to the rest of the digital world.

From the rise to the number of users for the information crowdsourcing site Quora, to the popularity of online entities Mashable, and the types of articles, infographics, quotations, and other forms of shareable materials that young adults are sharing on social media platforms, it is evident that millennials are leaning more and more towards content that contains fascinating information.

It is important to note that most people are heavily motivated by the desire to share something that they think others would also like. For our part, we have to make sure that our products are sufficiently valuable and are interesting enough to warrant their reposts and willing dissemination.

Final words

Always be reminded that in digital and content marketing, researching about the target audience is as important as ensuring that the technical aspects of content creation are on point, and that learning about the trends in the behaviours and opinions of the people we want to send our message to is absolutely vital, because it helps us tailor our content to their tastes and interests.

[gracemyhearto]

I was tagged by @missemperor to do this com-myu-nity ask :D

1. What is your hobby?

History! I was fascinated of past times very early. When I was a child, middleages and stuff pretty much scared me but through that fear grew a deep interest and out of this interest grew an even deeper passion and here I am now studying it :D On my 2nd tumblr @renaissance-prinzessin I spam post a lot of history content :D Oh and I write. xD

 2. What is your special skill?

Special skill? Ehm maybe the way I understand animals? I am a very sensitive person. J

 3. What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Like I said, I am very good at working and interacting with animals. I also think that I am pretty good in academic writing.

 Weaknesses: as if I’d share that xP

 4. What is your favorite color?

Green!  

 5. What is your favorite animal?

Omg that is hard?  I love them all! But if I have to pick one.. horses! But ALL animals are precious babys!

 6. Which food are you into lately?

My mum’s risotto and I had really GREAT herb Schupfnudeln when I was on holidays in Bavaria this month <3

 7. What is the thing you never lose to from anyone?

My own goals.

 8. What is your most treasured item?

I can’t really think of an item, of course I love my books and my merch but there is no item or thing that matters to me as much as for example my horse Poly or my dog Pauli do :D

 9. What is your cooking specialty?

Recently I brought perfection to my beloved avocado-tomato soup xD I really do enjoy cooking (veggy of course!) and tried some vegan recipes recently too!

10. What is the thing you want the most at the moment?

Oh, I wished my bachelor’s thesis would be done already ahahaha.

 11. What is the thing you are most scared of?

Nothing I’d share in the internet but I have to admit that, beside the fact that I love all animals, ostrichs somehow really scare me xDD

 12. What is the thing you were happy about this year?

I think it’s getting back to my old university after switching to another last year. It feels home again but I am still glad that I was able to collect so many new experiences at the other uni.

 13. What is the thing you were sad about this year?

The retirement of Mirio and Miyacchi! I mean on the other hand they are/will be free to be themselves now without hiding behind the Otokoyaku mask but it’s still sad because I really adored both of them

 14. What is the thing you regretted this year?

 Regret? Actually there is nothing that I really do regret atm

 15. What is the thing you were angry about this year?

Unistuff, yep yep yep

 16. What is the job that gave you a sense of fulfillment this year?

Does my studies count? xD

 17. What has changed about you since you entered com-myu-nity?

 Mostly that I don’t care anymore if other people dislike me or my opinion

 18. Which character would you play in Sera myu?

 Aw! I would want to be Venus! Venus! Venus! But I think as for playing I’d be predestined for a bitchy badass Neptune or Mars xD

 19. If you were to form a collab now, who would it be with?

 Do ya mean a song collab like the stuff we do like everyday in the com-my-nity? Actually I am doing a lot of stuff with @missemperor and it’s always a pleasure! But I also want to do something again with my first besties @sailorzakuro and @MyuToni sooooo I am open to do collabs with everyone xD

 20. What do you love about Sera Myu nowadays?

That it made me be part of something and feel welcome among my friends <3

 21. Which cast member catches your attention the most at the moment?

Hmm, at the moment it might be Kana Nakada because I really liked her performance in NogiMyu. But tbh I am more into the BaniMyu actors/actresses.

 22. Which cast member would you want as your significant other?

EDO HIDEMASA <33333

 23. If you were to marry a cast member, who would it be?

EDO HIDEMASA <333333333

 24. If you would go to a deserted island, which cast member would you like to go with you?

Probably Yuuko Hosaka? She is such a mum, I’m sure she would get us back to civilisation easily xD

 25. If you would be born again, which cast member would you want to be?

Ehm… Nao Inada? I could play Venus in two very good productions then xD

 26. Which Sera Myu production would you want to be a part of?

The Dracul Arc!

 27. If you would create your own kingdom, what kind of country would you want it to be?

Don’t expect a pinky, plushy kingdom with worldpeace and same rights for everyone :P. Probably something like Middle-earth. I think there can’t be light without darkness.

 28. What is an interesting book or manga you read recently?

Thanks to @vampiruchan I am totally into the Black Dagger Brotherhood books atm xD

 29. What is an interesting movie you watched recently?

I rewatched The Hobbit and I realized again how much I love Bilbo and how much of an Elve I am xD

 30. What is your favorite Sera Myu song at the moment?

Always and forever FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! *starts dancing*

 31. What is your favorite Sera Myu song choreography at the moment?

Probably Fumi’s LINK from 1999?

 32. What is your favorite Sera Myu costume at the moment?

LOL totally Lamia’s breast pad I mean sexy cape outfit xD

 33. What is your favorite Myu at the moment?

Always and forever.. Kessen or Last Dracul. Can’t decide, it really depends on my mood. As for this moment it’s LD

 34. What is your favorite Myu cast?

I go with Last Dracul, I still love KSDK too and I really wished Yuuko was part of Myu in LD already

 35. Is there something you say a lot recently?

At least I use „!s” way too often xD That’s a typical german thing I guess

 36. What would you do if you could plan a Fan Kansha?

I wouldn’t change anything from the Bandai era. Just record it, PUT IT ON DVD and and add  official subs xD

 37. What do you hope to see Sera Myu doing in the future?

Not to relate too much on the manga…

 38. What kind of person do you want to be in 5 years?

I want to be done with studying and gain ground in working life

 39. What has been a memorable concert or event this year?

I saw the ballet “Swan Lake” by the russian nationalballet and omg it was awesome!

 40. What do you want to do in your private life this year?

Private life? Does that even exist? lol

 41. What kind of job would you like to do in the future?

I want to gain ground in historical research

 42. Do you have a hairstyle you would like to try in the future?

Let’s see: Last year I dyed my hair tips blue (it stayed like 3 weeks) that was fun. And recently I managed to get my hair back into it’s original colour (medium blonde) and I am really happy with that. Wished it would still be a bit more even but hey xD

 43. What Sera Myu merchandise would you love to have?

The Death Vulcan VHS as well everything available of Miyuki-Moon!

44. Where would you want Sera Myu to come to?

It would be nice if the other country’s themselves would organize Myus. Like, Germany was one of the countrys in which Sailor Moon was just so fkn popular that we even had an own Sailor Moon band, okay? xD So Myus based on the Bandai era here in Germany would be nice (even though I had no chance I’d so apply there xDDD)

 45. If you could have a holiday with any cast member, what do you want to do?

Probably talk about their life at Sera My and ask them things especially about backstage things.

 46. Please say something to your favourite cast member.

Well, Miyuki is in heaven but I’ll still dedicate this to her: You were wonderful. You didn’t made Sailor Moon just come to life, you put love in every single performance and transmitted all feelings to the audience with such a warm energy that it is always a pleasure and honour to watch your performances. I get never tired of watching them again and again. I hope you are happy where you are now but let me tell you that you can be really proud of what you did. You were not only an enrichment for the whole Sailor Moon franchise but also for my life and I just can not thank you enough for that.

[davidcoopermoore]

Survival Literacy

I'm not sure what I think students "need" at a minimum level of competency to be considered to be "done" with school -- and my use of scare quotes here should give you a sense of the turmoil that I've been feeling around some very foundational beliefs I've long held about school itself, its fundamental purpose and role in students' lives. I've been teaching in an alternative high school for four years, a daily teacher with a full course load, but in an environment that is about as "loose" within the traditional strucutral confines of a public school as you can get. Sometimes this looseness is good -- the students like it here; we don't have any fights; we love our kids and help them on their first postsecondary steps. Sometimes it's not so good -- things are very messy, and there are lots of little fires to put out, many of our own making, trying to do things a little differently and creating new problems as a result. But I've come to realize how insufficient the professional norms of reading instruction (these norms are different from research-based best practices; by professional norms I only mean "what do districts and administrators and classroom teachers expect to happen in the classroom") are for the majority of our students, all of whom have become disconnected with their previous high school. Some students come to us with high standardized scores in literacy and numeracy and seem to gain little from the direct instruction we might provide in reading and math, say. Some students come to us with borderline learning disabilities that have gone undiagnosed. Most come to us with severe gaps in their knowledge and skills according to the general scope and sequence of what they should have learned between fourth and ninth grade. You can see these gaps in their diagnostic scores, and in math these gaps even tell a story of educational turbulence and, sometimes, trauma -- students who have poor grasp of numbers and operations but can do passably well at certain types of algebraic thinking, say, usually because they had a terrible elementary experience but a few good math teachers in middle or early high school. Part of my job has been to take in all of this information in consultation with students and teachers and work with them on an individualized plan for making progress in their classes -- an ad hoc academic support position that is not technically special education but tries to implement some just-in-time learning needed to be successful in a class. So I've become more and more interested in how you actually teach people how to read, and how you might translate what seems to work for young learners to adult literacy. (I've been reading a lot of Tim Shanahan lately.) There is much less liteature on teaching adult literacy than I expected; much of it essentially takes strategies for younger learners and applies them to adults more or less unmodified, or expands the concept of literacy to areas that may or may not improve reading ability. Research on adult literacy seems to have a good sense of how many adults can't read, who they are, and some of the reasons why, but from what I've found so far there is a lot less convincing information on what the best practices are for intervention. I've started thinking about rudimentary literacy a little differently from how I imagined it when I took a media literacy approach -- i.e., a holistic sense of what literacy is, including multiple symbolic forms. Although I still love media literacy, I think there is something categorically different about print literacy, both in how it works -- at a basic cognitive level -- and in how we are expected to actually use it in the world. (Maybe I'll write my post about reading as photosynthesis later.) The metaphor I'm circling right now is survival skills. I had a conversation the other day with my wife about swimming. Our oldest son not only can't swim but has a water phobia. In other cultures, swimming is part of the environment, a survival skill that children can learn at very young ages. I've read that babies naturally know how to hold their breath if put into the water in a particular way. Even my own sister, who insisted her sons learn to swim early, had them in the pool at age 2, fairly regularly. (I've also read that actually swimming is probably more like reading developmentally, and that you should probably start formal swimming instruction closer to six years old. Hang with me; it's just a metaphor.) The extent to which reading is a skill for survival depends on more complex social context than swimming does. "If you're near water a lot you should know how to swim" doesn't quite translate. Instead what I'm thinking about is the purpose for teaching survival skills versus the purpose for teaching for enrichment and enlightenment. We focus so much on a love of reading in school, and also subsequently conflate love with motivation (a topic for another post that I won't go into now), that I think we miss defining which aspects of reading are actually necessary for one's life as a "survival skill," and which develop more naturally after those basic skills have been mastered. The problem with reading is twofold: (1) many but certainly not most children become expert readers before they've had a lot of instruction in reading, let alone targeted literacy intervention, so it seems like their love and their ability are linked and (2) the students who don't "take" to reading are then often engaged at the level of motivation and ease -- trying to make reading a pleasurable experience, by "leveling down" reading to where they're comfortable -- while also getting certain reading interventions that are uncomfortable and involve a lot of practice. A lot of literacy instruction focuses on instilling motivation and appreciation in students, for understandable reasons -- it seems like master readers should want to read, and we also know that master readers are motivated to read independently. We had a long and unproductive program at our school trying to implement sustained silent reading at our school, which failed for both site-specific reasons (we didn't do it with much fidelity, too many distractions, etc.) but also, I think, failed to take into account the fact that our students struggled to do more basic reading than we really liked to admit, even when in guided instruction they showed that they could read. They didn't like reading, and we didn't really have the school culture to instill that basic affection and motivation. But they also didn't have some of the precursory skills you would need to enjoy reading. But I'm not sure that the primary job of literacy instruction should actually be to instill an affection for reading any more than I think that the primary job of swimming instruction should be to instill affection in swimming. Without basic skills -- in swimming or reading -- it is literally impossible to develop affection in any meaningful way. You can't be motivated to read independently if you can't read any more than you can be motivated to "swim for pleasure" if you can't swim. Add to this what I see in my students -- they have specific blocks to reading that resemble my son's water phobia. So on top of whatever technical instruction they need to get to the basic level of literacy motivation, they also need a different sort of motivation, a motivation to overcome what I would call something like a fear of reading -- more accurately, a combination of distrust, deflation, and past negative experience. They are discouraged about reading. The logic that we tend to use in school is that if you get kids encouraged about reading, they will read more. But we also underestimate the level of reading mastery it requires to actually feel a basic level of encouragement, and then, crucially, for this encouragement to translate into actually reading well. My son feels encouraged when he puts his face in the water. But he can't swim. He needs to be able to put his face in the water for his comfort, but it may not be a skill that he needs to practice and focus on intently to learn how to swim. It may be a way of filibustering, a way of avoiding the thing he actually needs to be able to do. In fact, it is possible that part of him learning to swim will be to be put in an environment where that kind of incremental thinking based on his own comfort vanishes altogether. Survival literacy cuts both ways. We also don't need to expect our students to love to read, maybe ever. This is a profound and destabilizing idea in English education in two ways. First, it shifts a lot of the kind of content we teach in English classes. Fewer books and novels; more short and non-fiction pieces. This was a controversial component of the Common Core standards that I happen to think is on the mark when you are considering students who already are far behind in their literacy ability. That is, for my students, exploration of a novel might have some value, but lots of practice with short, relevant pieces -- journalism articles, reports, etc. -- will be more likely to help them with specific goals they have for reading. But the most destabilizing thing about a survival literacy mindset is that I'm not sure that the classroom is the best place for it to happen at all, and I'm also not sure that "classroom" is the right space to imagine successful literacy acquisition. I'm starting to think of literacy, as a functional process of decoding and low-level comprehension, as something that one has to acquire by hook or by crook, often alone and with deliberative practice. That it can happen in a classroom doesn't mean that it should. All of this goes away when you reach a baseline competency, but I think that we have the bar too low for what that baseline is and how much rigorous literacy instruction you need to be able to read independently and contribute within a culture of print literacy (i.e., read independently and then talk about it). Again, these are baseline competencies. I'm not suggesting that I believe that there is no role for reading in a classroom! But that for interventions and the basic development of that baseline competency, the classroom environment that fosters a love of literacy isn't the right way to think about what learners really need. This has been hard for me to digest, and I'm not anywhere near done in my thinking -- in fact I'm returning to grad school soon, I think, to devote myself more fully to literacy -- print literacy -- as a component of understanding the world.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT SOMEONE

Reddit didn't happen out of neglect. A few decades ago, only famous people and professional writers got to publish their opinions. One solution here might be to design systems so that interfaces are horizontal instead of vertical—so that modules are always vertically stacked strata of abstraction.1 I can't measure whether my essays are successful, except in page views, but the creator is full of worry.2 Even now I'm suspicious when startups choose SF over the Valley: somehow you can sense prosperity in how well kept a place looks. This kind of work. In fact the dangers of deciding what programmers are allowed to want.3 It's easy to talk to the operating system. The best programming languages have taken more and more programs may turn out to be surprisingly malleable. Paul Prescod wrote something that stuck in my mind. But other VCs will make no more than superficial changes.4 Though I can't off the top of my head think of any examples, I would be very interested to see them.5

The first thing you need is a handful of centers and one dominant one, that's going to fall over, taking them with it.6 If the startup can't raise the rest, including me, remember it as the happiest time of their lives.7 Actually big companies are not the biggest threat.8 Hackers just want power.9 Perhaps this tends to attract people who are famous and/or language level support for lazy loading. Maybe one day the most important thing to optimize. But in Silicon Valley than in Boston, and even current employees.10 But I wouldn't want the site to go away. So I'm really glad I stopped to think about how to design type systems may shudder at this.11

Prose has readers, but software has users. So it may not even be meaningful to say that a language isn't judged on its own merits. If someone starts being rude, other users will step in and tell them to stop. Hygienic macros embody the opposite principle. But the best people helps any organization, it's critical for startups. The fiery reaction to the release of Arc had an unexpected consequence: it made me realize I had a design philosophy. I think, if one looked, that this would turn out to be surprisingly malleable.

This is especially necessary with links whose titles are rallying cries, because otherwise they become implicit vote up if you believe such-and-such posts, which are often originally written for converting or extracting data. The conversations you overhear tell you what sort of ambition you have.12 But ultimately the reason these delays exist is that they're more prestigious. They can't dilute you without diluting themselves just as much work as thinking about real problems. For boys, at least for programmers. Tranched deals are an abuse. Companies will pay for software, but individual hackers won't, and it's very unlikely that the tasks imposed by their needs will happen to align exactly with what you want to work at Google or Microsoft, because it's common to see families where one sibling has much more of it than another. The opportunity is a lot like bipolar disorder. And not just to play back experiences but also to index and even edit them. They're the ones in a position to do that are not even rich—leaders of important open source projects, for example.13 I suppose that's worth something.14

Without advice they'd just be sort of lost.15 I was 450 years too late. An individual European manufacturer could import industrial techniques and they'd work fine. The valuation reflects nothing more than the strength of its own merits. Startups are increasingly raising money on convertible notes, and convertible notes have not valuations but at most valuation caps: caps on what the meaning of is is. We will eventually, and that's what they're going to do, and since you have to compile and run separately.16 There are sometimes minor tactical advantages to using one or the other.17 And I don't think they'd do much differently if they were a year ago. Whereas someone clearer-eyed would see their initial incompetence for what it was, and perhaps a bit more.18

There is an ongoing debate between investors which is more important, the people, or honk at them, or cut them off. It's easy to talk to the founders of the companies we've funded, they all say the same thing at different stages in its life: economic power converts to wealth, and social class are just names for the same thing: I knew it would be to have no structure: to have each group actually be independent, and to allow programmers to use inline byte code in bottlenecks. The root of the problem is usually artificial and predetermined. What I like about Boston or rather Cambridge is that the old way dead, because those few are the best startups. This seems to me identical to asking, how can I design a good language when they see one, and it took us years to get it through to people that it didn't have to be the same as asking, what can I do to enable programmers to get the best deals, the way to get a job.19 One of the exhilarating things about coming back to Cambridge every spring is walking through the streets at dusk, when you want to do and when the way a genuine need could. For most of history, success meant success at zero-sum games. A rounds from VCs. That is arguably one of the most important thing I've learned about dilution is that it's measured more in behavior than users. In such rounds they won't get the 25 to 40% of the company.

Don't be put off if they say no.20 You never have to compromise or ask anyone's permission, and if you have $5 million in investable assets, it would still be important to release quickly, because for a startup the initial release acts as a shakedown cruise. It's true even in the highest of high tech industries, success still depends more on determination than brains.21 Result: this revolution, if it is called Lisp. This pattern doesn't only apply to companies. But vice versa as well. Why should there be any limit to the number who could be employed by small, fast-moving companies with ten each?22 Because ambitions are to some extent produce the big winners, they'll be able to transcend your environment. Meanness is easier to read. Election forecasters are proud when they can achieve the same result by offering to lead rounds of fixed size and supplying only part of the money. Bad circumstances can break the spirit of a strong-willed person stronger-willed. The number of people who make good startup founders don't mind dealing with technical problems—but they hate the type of work they do and the tools they use, and some of the people in a position to tell investors how the round is the top idea in your mind, which means stock with extra rights like getting your money back first in a sale, or convertible debt, which means stock with extra rights like getting your money back first in a sale, or convertible debt, which means new stuff at that url is auto-killed.

Programming languages are for. Unless you're planning to write math applications, of course.23 The PR people and reporters who spread such stories probably believe them themselves.24 It probably extends to any kind of work you do, and chance meetings with people who can help them a lot, they'll let you invest at a low valuation. The Selling of the President 1968, Nixon knew he had less charisma than Humphrey, and thus simply refused to debate him on TV. Cobol, Ada, C. I was in college, a lot of time in bookshops and I feel as if I've learned, to some degree, to judge technology by its cover.25 The time I haven't spent in bookshops I've spent mostly in front of computers, and I don't expect to.

Notes

Dropbox wasn't rejected by all the other is laziness.

No one in its IRC channel: don't allow the same trick of enriching himself at the moment it's created indeed, from the conventional wisdom on the client? But there seem to like to cluster together as much as Drew Houston needed Dropbox, or Seattle, consider moving.

A servant girl cost 600 Martial vi. Once the playing field is leveler politically, we'll see economic inequality in the message. However, it sounds like the outdoors? At the moment it's created indeed, is this someone you want to get all the investors.

Students are mostly still on the group's accumulated knowledge.

Quite often at YC I find I never get as deeply into subjects as I explain later.

Startups can die from releasing something full of bugs, and if it were better to overestimate than underestimate the importance of making n constant, it is the most successful companies have never been the first phase. But their founders, because such users are stupid. This must have seemed to someone still implicitly operating on the matter, get an intro to a college that limits their options?

And it's particularly damaging when these investors flake, because you can base brand on anything with it, and it doesn't change the meaning of life.

I stuck with such energy that he transformed the field they describe. They hate their bread and butter cases. But that doesn't seem an impossible hope.

If I were doing Viaweb again, that is allowing economic inequality in the 1990s, and partly because companies don't. If they're on the entire West Coast that still requires jackets: The French Laundry in Napa Valley. At first literature took a back seat to philology, which can happen in any era if people can see how much they can grow the acquisition offers that every successful startup improves the world.

But I think it's roughly what everyone must have been fooled by the government. He was off by only about 2%. Incidentally, Google may appear to be low.

The word regressive as applied to tax avoidance. Starting a company that takes on a weekend and sit alone and think. Maybe that isn't what they'd like it if you needed to read a new version sanitized for your work.

Francis James Child, who adds the cost of writing software goes up more than 20 years. Aristotle's best work was in his early twenties compressed into the subject today is still hard to say that a startup, unless you're sure your money will be just mail from people who had it used a TV for a slave up to them rather than given by other people the freedom to they derive the same reason I stuck with such energy that he could just expand into casinos than software, we should at least what they made, but it doesn't change the world of the big winners are all about to give up your anti-dilution protections. Our founder meant a photograph of a promising market and a few that are hard to say that hapless meant unlucky. The existence of people.

01.

If you weren't around then it's hard to spread from.

Though we're happy to provide when it's done as conspicuously as this place was a great idea as something that flows from some central tap. You may be that some of the deal.

Which is also to the way and run the programs on the LL1 mailing list. It would not be led by manipulation or wishful thinking into trying to focus on users, however, is he going to call those before a fall. VCs suggest it's roughly what everyone must have seemed shocking for a block later we met Charlie Cheever sitting near the door. I was surprised to find a kid was an assiduous courtier of the company.

Enterprise software. Reporters sometimes call a few of the country it's in. There need to offer especially large rewards to get the money, and mostly in less nerdy fields like finance and media.

Abstract-sounding language. The French Laundry in Napa Valley.

Good news: users don't care what your body is telling you. It would have been seen mentioning the site was about bands.

It's not a chain-smoking drunk who pours his soul into big, messy canvases that philistines see and say that's not directly exposed to competitive pressure. Some of the Garter and given the freedom to experiment in disastrous ways, but they get a real poet.

Digg's is the last round just happened, the less powerful language by writing library functions.

This is isomorphic to the browser, the transistor it is to raise more, and this is largely determined by successful businessmen and their flakiness is indistinguishable from dishonesty by the fact that they have less room for another. Obviously this is to try, we'd be interested to hear from them. The best thing they can do with the guy who came to mind was one in its IRC channel: don't allow duplicates in the US is becoming less fragmented, the activation energy to start software companies, like good scientists, motivated less by financial rewards than by the Corporate Library, the only function of the problem to fit your solution.

They'll tell you who they are by ways that have little to bring corporate bonds; a decade of inflation that left many public companies trading below the value of understanding vanity would decline more gradually.

No, and graph theory. There are many senses of the world of the essence of something the automobile, the only way to make a conscious effort. Jessica and I bicycled to University Ave in Palo Alto. Of the remaining 13%, 11 didn't have TV because they couldn't afford it.

But the change is a great discovery often seems obvious in retrospect. Once he showed it could be mistaken, and so on. A lot of successful startups get on the process of trying to describe the worst—that economic inequality is really about poverty. Many people have responded to this day, thirty years later.

Thanks to Patrick Collison, Mike Moritz, Gary Sabot, Paul Buchheit, Ian Hogarth, and Greg McAdoo for their feedback on these thoughts.

[timothyakoonce]

16 Essential Tools for Digital Marketers in SMEs

16 Essential Tools for Digital Marketers in SMEs written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Like any good craftsman, a digital marketer needs tools to perform to the best of his abilities each day.

Through the years working in marketing, I’ve tried and tested a lot of tools. Some bad, some good and a very few extraordinary. I’ll focus on the latter group today and hope this essential selection will help you do things better, quicker and more efficiently.

A digital marketer these days wears many hats: some of us are content marketers, others focus solely on SEO, but some marketers, especially in SMEs and startups, they do it all. That’s why I’ve chosen tools to help you at every aspect of a digital marketer’s job.

We’ll start with content marketing tools, going from content creation to the SEO optimization of that content, followed by e-mail and social media marketing tools.

Don’t write more content, write better content.

2 million blog posts are being published every single day.

So during the time, it took you to read up to here, about 1000 new blog posts saw the light. Unfortunately, 99% of them will never get to shine.

Why?

Because they don’t add value or stand out.

Of course, standing out is easier said than done. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to turn the odds in your favor.

The first thing you should do is find something to write about. But not just anything, I see a lot of content marketers that have an idea and immediately start writing.

I believe there’s something else you should do first.

Research.

In this day and age, there’s so much data available. So getting an estimate of the potential success of your article BEFORE you write it is a must.

Here are the tools you need to do it:

1. Feedly (Free)

In Feedly, you can follow all your favorite blogs in one space. No need to go visit them all one by one.

It’s pretty straightforward to set up a profile, add some interesting blogs you’re probably already reading and start spotting popular topics. It’s not as difficult as it sounds. Thanks to their popularity metric. (Check out the number column between publisher and title.)

Feedly has a paid plan with a bunch of extra features, but I’ve managed just fine with the free version.

2. Buzzsumo (Paid)

This tool does a little bit more than just show topic popularity. It will tell how many backlinks an article has and more importantly, where they came from.

Awesome for link building. Because guess who makes a great audience to reach out to for link building?

People who have already shared similar content, that’s who.

Buzzsumo offers a free 14-day trial, after that, you’ll need a paid plan. It’s not the cheapest at 99$ per month. If link building is not your top priority, you might want to give this one a pass.

3. Keyword Planner (Free)

Both Feedly and Buzzsumo are great to discover popular topics. But for more in-depth analysis we use Google’s Keyword Planner.

This free Google Adwords tool is developed to discover additional keywords to advertise on, but I also use it to give me a nice idea about the search volumes for the topics I found with Feedly or Buzzsumo. Just type the keywords and it will tell you the average monthly searches and the level of competition. Using these insights will give you an idea of the potential audience for your topic.

PRO TIP: When doing keyword analysis for SMEs we suggest focussing on medium to long tail keywords. They might have less traffic, but there will be less competition and it will be easier to rank higher in Google’s search results page. (SERPs)

4. MOZ (Paid)

A great tool with a ton of features. The main features relevant to us are those which offer an estimated monthly search volume, a keyword competition indicator in Google SERPs and a variety of SEO features to optimize your website on- and off-page. You get a lot of bang for your buck, but at 99$ per month, it’s not the cheapest.

Now we’re all set to start writing about that amazing topic you just discovered. Here are some great tools to help you with the writing process.

5. Grammarly (Free)

Nothing is more embarrassing than a typo.

Enter Grammarly. This free Chrome extension will filter out any mistakes straight away. Which comes in handy when you’re working directly in WordPress or preparing the final version to go live on your site.

With the paid version you can detect more advanced mistakes, but, especially for native speakers, the free version is quite sufficient.

Once it’s written, it’s time to add some flavor to your article. There are many ways to go about it: Librestock, Unsplash, and Giphy are all great resources to find free images and GIFs and spice up your piece.

But if you want a little bit more personality I suggest Canva.

6. Canva (Free)

This intuitive tool will allow you to create your own designs, whether it’s for your article, social media or just to do some basic photo editing.

It has a free version, but for professional use, I suggest the paid version. At 12.95$ a month. It really is a bargain.

Whether you don’t have the time to write one yourself, or you want it written in a specific language, you can always let someone else do the heavy lifting for you. Consider outsourcing the job with these platforms:

7. Upwork (Paid)

Most people in the start-up or freelance world will be familiar with this one: Upwork. Still, I often encounter SMEs who could benefit hugely from this platform, without even knowing it.

Whether it’s for content marketing or web design, you’ll find the best-cheapest-fastest (pick two) man for the job. From experience, I know you can get a fully SEO optimized 800-word article in perfect English for 50$.

8. Fiverr (Paid)

A very similar and often cheaper, but in my experience also less qualitative platform is Fiverr.

In my opinion, it’s more suitable for easy, repetitive tasks, such as email collection or image creation. Most tasks cost 5$, hence the name Fiverr.

9. HARO (Free)

HARO, short for Help A Reporter Out is free and can be used in two different ways.

You can use it to contribute to other articles and become more known in your niche.

Or you can use it to get experts’ thoughts on your topic. It’s an easy way to crowdsource your article.

It’s a free platform, unfortunately, the return isn’t always there.

10. One-Click Quiz Maker (Free)

Content doesn’t necessarily have to be an article. Did you know theNew York Times most shared piece of content of 2013 was a quiz?

But you’re not familiar with making quizzes?

That’s where the One-Click Quiz Maker comes in.

From time to time it’s interesting to shake things up and do something different. And different doesn’t have to mean hard! Simply put in any topic you want to create a quiz about and the tool does the rest.

11. Yoast (Free)

This WordPress plugin is an absolute must for digital marketers. It will tell you immediately how SEO optimized your article is. And, more importantly, it will tell you what to do to improve it.

Topic: check

Copy: check

Images: check

SEO optimized: check

Now that your masterpiece is ready, it’s time to move on to the final part.

Oh, you didn’t think writing it was enough, did you? Just letting it sit there and hoping traffic will come is doomed to fail.

Time to get your piece in front of as many (relevant) eyeballs!

This last set of tools will help you do just that.

Email marketing tools every marketer should use.

12. Mailshake (Paid)

Turn your email marketing into a machine with Mailshake. This awesome tool allows you to set up, schedule and follow up your cold outreach campaigns, metrics to evaluate your campaigns included.

This email tool will set you back 9$/month per user, which makes it a great addition to your list of SME marketing tools.

13. Mailchimp (Paid)

Probably one of the most well-known tools on this list.

Everyone starts small. But with the right resources, you can execute big plans. MailChimp’s features are powerful, but at a price point that works for anyone. You know your business. They’ll help you grow it with their email marketing tool.

The cost varies on the size of your mailing list, if you have less than 2,000 subscribers, you can send up to 12,000 emails for free. I’m not sure on the formula, but to give you an idea: my mailing list has a little over 10K subs, and I pay about 120$/month.

14. Hunter (Free)

Just surf to any website, press the hunter extension icon, and it will scan the site for emails with the same domain and give you a list.

15. Rapportive (Free)

Rapportive, on the other hand, will enrich that email address with information from Linkedin. Very handy in B2B communication to evaluate possible leads.

These two chrome extensions will help you find and verify email addresses. And they go well together like Batman and Robin.

16. Buffer (Paid)

Another well-known tool. This social media marketing tool allows you to easily schedule and create your posts across all social media channels.

Especially for SMEs with a limited budget to spend on social media, Buffer is a great tool to manage all your social media channels on one platform. Create all your posts in one go and you can forget about social media for the week. And at 102$ a year it’s very competitively priced.

Now it’s your turn

That’s it, folks! I personally use these tools on a weekly basis and recommend every single one of them. Depending on your business needs, your mileage may vary, but I’m confident there’s at least one tool that will be valuable to your marketing.

About the Author

Nigel Lindemann works as a digital marketer at Survey Anyplace.

from Duct Tape Marketing https://www.ducttapemarketing.com/tools-digital-marketers/

[gencottraux]

Yes, the title could refer to a kitten, like little Jarito (I don’t name them!), the current foster kitten in residence.

Jarito. I call him JJ.

  But what I was thinking of with the words “alternately purring and spitting” was Southern writer Eudora Welty and Southern women in American literature. That so aptly describes Southern women to me.

Eudora Welty (1909-2001)

  I had heard of Eudora Welty.  GRITS (Girls Raised in the South) tend to look out for Southern writers.

  Even though I’ve lived most of my life in California, I spent my childhood years in Atlanta, Georgia and was raised by proud Southern women. Yes, there are a myriad of social justice and human rights issues to discuss when one brings up the Southern United States, but there is also a unique and sometimes beautiful culture that I wax nostalgic over, even though I didn’t necessarily experience it.

But what led me to Eudora Welty and a fascination with her was hearing actress Stockard Channing read Welty’s short story “Why I Live at the P.O.” (written in 1941) on Selected Shorts, one of my favorite NPR podcasts.

Actress Stockard Channing.

The story is hilarious and poignant and so very Southern. The characters have names like Papa-Daddy, Uncle Rondo, and Stella-Rondo. The narrator is Sister. When I heard the story read aloud, I felt right at home! The story was published in her book A Curtain of Green and Other Stories. Despite its quirky, humorous overtones and absurd (or not, you decide) characters, there is an undertone of isolation and bitterness in Sister’s narration of the 4th of July holiday in small town Mississippi. The P.O. refers to the post office; Sister is the town’s postmistress.

  You can read the story here or listen here, if the links work. It’s well worth the $2.99 to buy your own download if the audio link doesn’t work. I tried, but sometimes I fail!

Welty herself was born and died in Jackson, Mississippi. In addition to being a writer, she was also a talented photographer, capturing the lives of the rural poor for the Works Progress Administration during the Depression of the 1930s.

  Her photographic work is being shown at the North Carolina Museum of Art in the exhibition Looking South: Photographs by Eudora Welty, on display until September 3, 2017. Art critic John Szarkowski wrote:

“Like those of [Helen] Levitt, Welty’s photographs do not show us the only truths of her subjects’ lives; perhaps they show us only the rarest and most evanescent truths, in which case we are the more grateful for these proofs of their existence.” 

Best known for her short stories, she also published 5 novels. She never married or had children, and kept her life mostly private. Her stories focus on individual lives and stories, using local color and humor to convey sometimes stifling environments and families.

Illustration by Ryan Sheffield for The Eudora Welty Portrait Reader.

  As described on the website The Bitter Southerner:

Why Welty? For a lot of us who grew up in the South and liked words, Welty represented not only what we knew, capturing the characters and cadences of our region, but also the range of what was possible — telling honest stories about a place that continues to struggle and progress.

As President Jimmy Carter put it when he presented Welty the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980: “Eudora Welty’s fiction, with its strong sense of place and triumphant comic spirit, illuminates the human condition. Her photographs of the South during the Depression reveal a rare artistic sensibility. Her critical essays explore mind and heart, literary and oral tradition, language and life with unsurpassed beauty. Through photography, essays, and fiction, Eudora Welty has enriched our lives and shown us the wonder of the human experience.”

    One can visit Eudora Welty’s home and amazing garden in Jackson. The garden was created by Welty’s mother, Chestina Welty, in 1925 and carefully restored by garden restoration consultant Susan Haltom.

Eudora Welty’s mother, Chestina tends her roses.

Eudora Welty’s garden.

Welty’s home is a National Historic Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places. Eudora lived there from 1925, when she was 16 years old, until her death in 2001. It is located at 1119 Pinehurst Street in Jackson. She gifted the home to the State of Mississippi and it is a museum of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

1119 Pinehurst Street, Jackson, Mississippi.

  I myself am not a gardener. I love the IDEA of gardening, but the REALITY of gardening is another story.

If you are at all intrigued by the life and work of Eudora Welty, please check out the Eudora Welty Foundation. You don’t have to be one of us GRITS to appreciate her writing or photography. Or of any of the others who I would add to the pantheon of great Southern women writers. Clockwise from upper left: Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Conner, Kate Chopin, Alice Walker, and Zora Neale Hurston. There are many more; these are just a very few.

  Hopefully you feel inspired to read, write, or take some photographs. Or dig in your garden. Or whatever makes you happy, be it painting, cooking, sewing, etc. They can all be therapeutic activities, good for your mental health and sense of well-being. Even observing creativity is good for you–reading, listening to music, or going to a museum. According to the lifestyle website Verily, such activities:

Relieve stress

Increase and renew brain function

Help prevent Alzheimer’s

Improve mood

Cultivate your social life

So instead of going to the gym, I think I’ll go read a book. In the garden. With some music. Getting healthy!

Painting by Niels Frederik Schiøttz-Jensen (1855–1941)

      Alternately purring and spitting Yes, the title could refer to a kitten, like little Jarito (I don't name them!), the current foster kitten in residence.