#memebership

[kimludcom]

Unlock Exclusive Perks with Our New Membership Levels! @Kimlud

coming soon!

[lavendergoddesstarot]

Patreon 🧡

For those interested, I'm starting a new Patreon membership. I will be posting more in depth, longer readings on that platform. Hope to see you there♥️

[pollyna]

If someone were to ask Maverick when he really understood they were forever and tied the knot without having tied it yet, Mav would probably laugh a little because "that's a pretty funny story. We had been going to this shop for a while now, after rotating five or six of them because Ice wasn't finding the type of flour he wanted until that place, and they were giving up the membership card for accumulated points or some shit like that. Ice goes to fill out the documents, and when the girl behind the desk asks him how many cards he wants and he says two, he looks at me, points his pen at me, and asks, are you going to sign or what, Mitchell? I was stuck, didn't know what to do or how to react, and the girl was watching me like I was some kind of alien for not taking the pen from his hand. It was just a stupid piece of plastic, but it made me realise that Ice was it for me, and until he wanted me around, I would have been. Nobody had ever asked me to share a shop card and the implication of having to use it for all my future trips there? Maybe even for years? It left me breathless. I still have it, the card, I mean, it has almost lost all its color, but I can't think about trashing it." Mav finishes smiling, a golden ring resting around his neck with his dog tags.

[calkale]

why are dumbbells $50 each man 😭😭

[questwithambition]

Not only is the British library bookshop a delight, I also has the dark green sofa of my dreams

[bueris]

my worst habit is if I'm going to any art gallery with a friend I will point at paintings and sculptures that are really abstract or not obviously emotive and say "me when I get that thursday feeling" and stare them dead in the eyes with an unblinking smile until they look away or laugh

[vintagepresley]

Good morning, besties. I woke up and checked IG and this was what I saw and you know what I did? Signed up to be a member. 😂😂

[luxtax]

Rabbit Memes [ REQUEST ]

Request Week January 2023 - prompt was some memes and I added some little bonus doodles

At the end of every month my Boba Tier has a request week where I try to do as many sketches as possible that have been requested! If you'd like your own feel free to check out my memberships! https://ko-fi.com/luxtax

[redrum-alice]

UPDATE!: Tiered Membership :)

Added another benefit to my membership tier

...im ready for you filthy timebomb fantasies

👁👄👁🔫

[resetmnm]

New idea for Ko-Fi members: I'll post some doodles/sketches I've made but never completed (for a variety of reasons) and they pick wich one to complete once a month.

[mrspeedster]

thinking about getting back into dcuo

[transurgender]

IM GETTING NOSTALGIC FOR ANIMAL JAM.... i miss all my old critters man. i miss bug father specifically i wanna draw him so bad

[evadingreallife]

A surprising number of people wants me to perish. I see how it is.

[halfwayessay]

MovieStarPlanet and Classism

Yes. Yes you read that right. This short little dive through history will discuss how virtual worlds with VIP or exclusive rank memeberships often, be it purposeful or not on the part of the developers, cause the game to become very classist. Essentially, there exists a boundrary between the non-VIP members and the VIP. MovieStarPlanet (MSP) has been chosen here because it is a game i personally played when I was younger and using Izzzyzzz's 2022 deep dive video on the game as a form of concrete backing behind my hypothesis.

So, what even is classism? Well as described earlier classism, in a MSP context, is the seperation of VIP and non-VIP members. But it isn't as simple as that, it has more to do with how the VIP members behave around non-VIP members which dictate whether or not it is truly classist. Classism is a broad topic and tries with varying sucess to integrate many different intersectional elements (Pincus & Sokoloff, 2008), but today we're just going to be viewing it through the lens of class discrimination. In Pincus & Sokoloff's 2008 paper they outline how individual discrimination, a form of intetional harrasment, can be enacted on thsoe lower in the class hierarchy than oneself. Especially relevant to this story's example, they note that "they can be snobbish and say negative things about people 'below' them" [p.19].

From personal experience and from Izzzyzzz's video, this happened on MSP a lot. With a lot of the content on the site being paywalled, the VIP membership was a must have or at least must have for those who wanted to enjoy the game beyond the shallow perameters provided by the developers. This led many to the membership but also inadvertently created a class divide amongst the MSP playerbase; the foundation for classism to even exist in the first place. This class distinciton, creates an "us" and "them" mentatlity which seeps into the very fabric of the game. "Poor" or non-VIP members are treated almost as if they do not have a place in the game, as if their very existence is "below" the VIP's, as mentioned in the earlier quote. To quote Izzzyzzz: "the intense paywalling to bullying quote unquote poor players pipeline is real with this game" (10:04-10:09). The divide which exists between those who can pay for VIP and those who can't may not be the classism in and of itself and may rather be, as mentiond by Pincus & Solokoff, "capitalism in action" [p.20]. Yet still, as Izzzyzzz goes on to mention the discrimination between "rich" and "poor" players still very much exists and it usually happens in the form of bullying someone for their outfit/style (10:15-10:37). Non-VIP clothes, from personal experience, don't allow for that much expression. Therefore, those who have VIP look down upon those who don't because they have the ability to express themselves more; to not look "poor" or, one could say, "lower class."

MSP, by all means, has a classist and hypercapitalist system which promotes the purchase of VIP to join the upper classes of MSP society (Väistö, 2016) and, inadvertently, promotes classism due to the large divide in expression there is between the two groups. This makes it easier to point and laugh at those the "rich" deem as "below" them, "poor," or, in a game where social capital and looks are all (Väistö, 2016), "ugly." The effect this has on the real world might seem miniscule and insignificant, but, as demonstrated by Väistö's investigation into younger MSP players, this is not the case: "herefore, in this instance, there is a connection between the status children construct for themselves both online and offline" (2016: 125).

Thank you so much for reading this giant block of text. This one was particularly fun to write because I found a thesis I really enjoyed reading through. Sources are below as always:

Pincus, F. L. & Sokoloff, N. J. (2008). Does "Classism" Help Us to Understand Class Oppression? Izzzyzzz. (2022). A Deep Dive Into MovieStarPlanet. - YouTube Väistö, T. (2016). Children’s discourse on development in online and offline fields: A study of positions and symbolic power

[shadepiplup10]

Some Ko-Fi rewards from the past months!

Do you want to be a member? Join my Ko-Fi memebership!

[gayleviticus]

it kinda sucks how aus socialist alternative seem super annoying AND also incapable of like... not trying to instantly recruit you into the depths of their organisation? like, i have no qualms w the idea that it's good to work w them for a common cause even if they have certain problems as a group -

but they don't seem content with that; every interaction w them is always buy our newspaper. come to our melbourne conference. come to all our reading groups at 6pm on a work night in the middle of the city. it feels like they care more about group membership than meaningful action.

and i can get having committed group memebership is important long-term - but they badger you so much about it upfront. which immediately triggers most people's anti-hawker, anti-scammer, anti-proselytiser defences all at once

theyre also the most visible leftist group around alas. but compare like the justice for palestine groups, which are no less passionate abt liberation but also way more chill and don't feel like theyre trying to swallow you up like a lamb