#people be normal about celebrities on the internet challenge

[koifishanonymous]

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> 1st post: neil gaiman is homophobic actually

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[deepmochi]

Pluto in Aquarius

Let's talk about Pluto in Aquarius, and what we can expect.

Since Aquarius is an air sign, we will see more information to hold us and others accountable, especially people who has power to help or change the world.

This air sign presents valid and real information. A lot of mysterious or secrets are coming, but usually these are an open secret.

Aquarius represents rebellious acts to society and want to change for humanity. In Pluto, this air sign comes and say "hey, what are you doing for others?!" This will be predominant to known people like celebrities and politicians. The reason for this is Aquarius' logic. If I give you, I should receive soemthing, right?

Common folks could make a change, but the rich is overlapping our small steps. We aware now, though.

Many "secrets" are going to be reveled to the public. Secrets that are open. For example, many conspiracy theories are been revealed as actual truth.

This time would be more logical. By logic, I'm meaning be reasonable. Don't trust words, see actions. So, if 2+2 = 4, the result is clear.

Celebs culture would be dying. Slowly, be are seeing them as what they are, some evil and greedy people, or just ordinary people with bad tendencies.

Your favorites will show their true values. So be careful who you idolize. Aqua is more humanitarian. We can detect people with narcissistic and evil aspects.

Government and all the previous power institutions are gonna be renew. Some will fall and other rise.

The citizens are tired of lies and suffering. Many protests are coming. Rebellious acts too, not all is good.

Ai and technology advances are coming. Protect your information and use it wisely. Possible laws against the use of Ai and internet services will come, but it takes times.

Saturn in Aries will play a role in a more fire approach too. Many aggressive approach on online communities will be present. People would be more bold than before.

A more raw and honest approach is appreciated by the public. However, some people will think is safe to push hidden agendas (not good at all).

People will behave more aggressive, especially online communities. Online comments are become aggressive more than normally.

A new creation or invention would occur. Something for all of us; I mean, it involves our wellbeing.

Sexuality topics will be present. More acceptability but also scary things will come.

People would try to explore their fashion style and sense of self more. Creating a more individual approach than collective.

Old institutions and religions cult will fall. People will question their foundations.

Weird things make occur, like there is a eccentric part to Aquarius. New things coming that are not ordinary at all.

Gen Alpha trends will increase. Very interesting trends will come.

Renewing and a more open concious will arise, collectively.

Spirtual people are not perceived as weirdos anymore. Still, not everyone is being truthful.

More restrictions will come because powerful people will get mad that they cannot control the masses as before.

Individual take and better understanding of some communities. I respect you period...

Digital job offers are increasing, but being more socially in real life will be a challenge.

People would try to help others through technology, but it will be blocked by media.

Friendly people (truly) would be so appreciated. "Nice privileged" might be a new thing.

At the beginning, people will be more selfish; later on, the goal is working together. Since the "i need boundaries" will be misunderstood by many.

The big countries will be experience some issues. A new chapter will come, a new potency.

More investigations and questions about power will arise.

Something new for good or bad through science.

Alien contact...maybe through technology.

Spirtual attacks and stuff related are truth. Protect your heart and mind.

Restructuring political institutions and movement. People want changes!!

A new law to protect children and innocents against predators will come.

Society will questioned money 💰 and its structure?! A possible new economic system.

And more...these were some ideas / examples I got.

What we know, recently?!

For example, the expose of private jets carbon emissions. It was a privilege in the past to won a Jet. Now, we cuestioned why rich people use it constantly?! The planet's condition is so bad, and look the Superbowl. Many celebrities and rich people travel there in their private jet, more especially 525 private jets were there for a GAME?! Crazy. Meanwhile some of us a collective take the bus to work or study or share a taxi. Funny, we need to use less plastic to protect our planet. Then, they use their private jets for fun times.

This type of information is known since Aquarius is ruled by knowledge and humanitarian actions. Nowadays, we has access to this info, and we know by now that rich people is selfish.

It's not shocking so far. We as a collective are called to acknowledge and questions those with resources and power. However, the way we act is different. Remeber, Aqua is a unique sign.

Another example: Just look at the scandals during January 2024, the Epstein list news, Nicky Minaj and Megan thee Stallion beef. In both cases, people are like damn they have money and use it for what? Evil creatures.

Example: For Nicky and Megan's case, people are asking Nicky why she defend her husband and brother for being the sexual offender?! Is she crazy? Again the info isn't hidden. Minaj is married, and it isn't a secret. Actually, we already know about this. You can seach on internet, but the collective didn't accep it. When Pluto was still in Capricorn surviving is necessary. Even with the war, we know is happening, but we need to still need to pay our apartment, buy groceries, or study. Unfortunately, we, common folks, citizens aren't not the answer. Pluto comes questions us?

We make them famous, are these people returning the favor to society? Why rich people doesn't can't help if they have the resources? They can do something, but they don't do it. WHY? BECAUSE they don't care, they're are selfish. This is why people are posting their sides. Expect more and more people sharing opinions and technology advances too.

Note: not everything is set on a stone. Take what resonates. If doesn't resonates, IGNORE IT!

[princessmacedon]

{ happy anniversary!

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is. Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing! Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together. Template courtesy of Neffi! 💕

Name: Red, more commonly nicknamed Reddo

Pronouns: they/them preferred, she/he OK!

Birthday (no year): December 28th

Where are you from? What is your time zone? moved to kentucky when I was young, and for sake of ease i use EST (TOAST)! i live near a timezone line, so i get to be flexible like that >vo)v HAHA

How long is your roleplay experience? with a few on and off breaks, roughly 15 years? i forgot about a period of my life where i 'moderated' (read: was the most active user on) a warrior cats RP site; my first foray into rp proper was in pokemon rp on tumblr, my first muse was lyra but i didnt have an internet name until i picked up and settled into writing (you'll never guess who)

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? kind of half answered this above oops, but with warrior cats i genuinely dont remember? i probably just googled warrior cats and wound up there HAHA. for pokemon...... honestly probably the same thing

How were you introduced to TOA? key had mentioned it to me in passing a few times, so i knew she was there, but it wasn't until my friend zyra mentioned it to me and suggested we write macedon siblings together again that i actually joined, hahaha

Do you have any pets? i do! i adopted a ?? year old dog from the shelter about six years ago, so now he's x+6 years old :] pretty sure he's some kind of border collie mix, but not certain! his name is tobin, but he'll answer as long as you say 'ob'. he's a sillyhead

What is your favorite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) it used to be winter because i love the snow! but as i get older and more harrowed by weather conditions, i appreciate how normal and not-trying-to-kill-me autum is HAHA

What is your IRL occupation? (finger guns) figuring it out

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? drawing was my first love! i like reading, especially comics, and writing; i like video games and immersing myself in stories, and have passing interests in things that i don't commit to trying out (like resin, charms, etc etc)

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? FFXIV, mainly; genshin impact and hsr; various farming-ish sims (story of seasons + old harvest moon, stardew valley, rune factory, currently fields of mistria); to a lesser extent dragon age, ace attorney, various VNs / otome / rhythm games, pokemon until roughly scarlet/violet era and then my wallet couldnt keep up with it HSDFSGVSD

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: as a kid it waffled between fire / dark, but not sure i have a dead set favorite type anymore. favorite pokemon still lucario and appletun for sure though!

Tell us some funfacts and trivia about yourself! (Optional bonus challenge: if you filled this out last year, try not to repeat what you said back then!) - i love christmas and thinking about gift giving! when i was in school my christmas spreadsheet hit like, 50 names HAHA nooooo way do i have that energy anymore, though - i'm reasonably fond of baking and also reasonably terrible at it! something always goes wrong but usually (usually) stuff comes out pretty tasty in the end. except for that time i set my oven on fire

How did you get into Fire Emblem? my friends were talking about how much fun they were having with the new game at the time, awakening! it looked fun so i decided to try it out

What Fire Emblem games have you played? - Beaten: Genealogy, Blazing Blade (FE7 if youre like me and still cant remember which one is which), Shadow Dragon & New Mystery, Awakening, Fates (Conquest + Birthright), Three Houses (Blue Lions) - Started: Binding Blade (FE6), Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance (FE9), Fates (Revelation), Shadows of Valentia, Three Houses (Black Eagles & Golden Deer), Engage

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: Awakening -- still Awakening! possibly tied with 3H, though. i really enjoy games where i can peacefully level grind

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! vaguely ordered, it's: Wolf, Maria, Cordelia, Seliph, Katarina...? if you think you're seeing a trend you're probably right, hahaha ^^ writing a character is an expression of love for me, so inevitably my muses climb higher and higher on my list over time

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! the clearest one i can remember is wolf, because when i was playing fe11 i was passively using him because he was pretty, and then he got 7 crits in a row and i was like :pika:

Any Fire Emblem crushes? 😳i'm weak toward green haired women AHSJASFDSF but actual game crushes, hmm... not sure!

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? - Awakening: chrom -> still chrom! - Fates: takumi -> hmm... silas or flora? - Three Houses: dimitri -> still dimitri, except now he's duking it out with yuri - Engage: i have the ring in my pocket as we speak, suffering from the burden of choice... probably diamant though?

Favorite Fire Emblem class? whatever class my blorbos thrive in

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? in all likelihood i'm a villager with just absolutely baffling AI. not entirely stupid, but you cant in good conscience say it's smart either HAHA as a playable unit though, i might be a recruit-type? i could do well if you help me grow, otherwise i'm just this scruffy shitty thing tucked into your pocket. middling-high skill growth, paper defense, and you wish you knew what my speed growth was because i don't (probably fast as a mage but realistically NOT as anything physical)

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? (Black Eagles, Blue Lions, Golden Deer, Church of Seiros, Those Who Slither in the Dark, unaffiliated civilian, other - for example Almyran) my heart says blue lions, but if i'm just some guy (unaffiliated civilian) i won't be surprised

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? - Boons: Reason - Banes: Authority, Gauntlets - Budding Talent: Flying

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? (Firene, the Kingdom of Abundance; Brodia, the Kingdom of Might; Elusia, the Kingdom of Knowledge; Solm, the Queendom of Freedom; Lythos, the holy land of the Divine Dragon; Gradlon, the desolate land of the Fell Dragon) hmm... probably either Firene or Lythos! i'm too much of a weenie to be from brodia HAHA

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔(separate letters, to-ah, other?) toah, like noah! to all my xiv gamers out there this definitely applies to job shorthands too. durg. dirk. whum blum sidge. rurpur and rogg...

Current TOA muses: Maria & Katarina

Past TOA muses? Cordelia my beloved

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? Maria! unless something unprecedented happens, i don't see that changing. writing her, her want and determination to love and find wonder in the world, to spread and be joy -- it just puts me in a good place! it's really, genuinely helped me a lot, even if her extroversion is exhausting to my introvert ass sometimes HAHA

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) uhhh... i definitely tend toward characters who are in some regard defined by a form of love or strong emotion, romantic though it need not be -- people who have some sort of powerful, aching tenderness in their heart. i've not really done as much as i've wanted in terms of bringing that out of them, but it's definitely something that draws me in to a character in the first place!

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? ooh, there are lots of characters i like who have a brusque edge or manner, who might be harsh or cold... i wish i could do that! i'd like to try, i think. and also the funny, energetic, boisterous types -- i love to see them and be around them, but i definitely can't pull it off hahaha

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? (If you filled this out last year, has this changed in any way?) it's been a while since i've gone all in on this kind of scene, but i love emotional scenes and heart-to-hearts -- the sort of thing where you're communicating your feelings with everything you have and trying to reach someone else! i usually rein myself in well shy of that though, hahaha. i worry a lot about getting too lost in the sauce and derailing a conversation/thread, or making it all about what my muse/what they want to communicate.

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? for katarina, i'd love for her to make some friends! she's her own worst enemy in this regard, separating herself from friends/friendships whether consciously or subconsciously. for maria... well, i'd love for her to have a real heart to heart with someone!

Favorite TOA-related memories? to this day i miss and adore annie's frederick! his dynamic with my cordelia at the time was so much fun to write and to talk about and we had such thoughts for how their relationship would evolve -- it's one of the most interesting and endearing relationships i've had the pleasure of writing! on a sillier note, i often think about leif hauling ass after kanoesa's lewyn HAHA

Present or past tense? it used to be past tense, but i think toa's successfully converted me to defaulting to present hahaha ^^;; consciously at least, i try to match whatever my partner does!

Normal size text, small text, no preference? it doesn't matter to me, but i do hate fighting tumblr to keep all of the small text small.

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉 the wolf app/blog i've been refining on and off for the better part of three years is no secret HAHA, but i've seriously contemplated writing a few other characters! radd and boucheron, to name a couple. i get super attached to my characters though, so it's a bit tricky

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Friends to Lovers (8) Masterlist

part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven

About useless lists and oblivious teenagers (ao3) - OliveTheHobbit

Summary: Phil helps Dan with his sexuality crisis while he tries to overcome the fact he is head over heels for him. Oh, and they have a date day.

Apartment 126 (ao3) - girlboss128

Summary: Dan is 23 year old video editor living in a London flat. His days are boring and he lives life as a hopeless romantic. Then, Phil Lester, a 27 year old Internet celebrity moves in across the hall. Dan after one glance decides he needs Phil in his life. Dan is forward and persistent. How could this end?

April Fools (ao3) - hygge

Summary: Dan proposes an April Fools Day prank that he thinks will shock the Internet. But, when it comes time to share it with the world, Phil has second thoughts. There is something he needs to get off of his chest instead.

Big Love (ao3) - winstonlives

Summary: Phil wakes up freezing one night, only to find out he is shrinking. Panicked and tiny he goes to Dan for help. Together the two deal with the challenges that come along with being too small for the normal world. Relying on each other, and working together, they realize their friendship, is in fact more than just friendship.

Come Clean (ao3) - castrotophic

Summary: Dan thinks Phil might be in love with him, but he's not quite sure how to figure it out.

Craving Control (ao3) - starwatersong

Summary: Phil is intrigued by the hypnotist at the YouTuber Summit in 2016 and finds himself oddly fascinated by hypnotism. Is Dan helping him find one for a video for Phil’s benefit… or Dan’s? Some timeline mixing where Phil’s fortune telling video takes place in an earlier time. They’re living in London apartment #1 in this story.

Don’t be scared (ao3) - danisnot3131

Summary: Before agreeing to go on Tour for Interactive Introvers, Dan is hit with the realization that he’s been in love with Phil for years.

Do You Know How in Love With You I Am (Please Notice) (ao3) - phantasticworks

Summary: Based on a Phan!The Office AU drawing by @laurainlilac on tumblr

Dan works at a small paper company, but the brightside to this boring career is that his best friend Phil is just a few feet away at reception. The downside to this is that he’s hopelessly, irrevocably in love with said best friend. Oh, and Phil is engaged, too.

A short little story about best friends, being in love, and pining hopelessly after the boy you think you can’t have. But, don’t worry, there’s a happy ending in here somewhere.

drop your heart I’ll save it for you(ao3) - Anonymous

Summary: Tenderness isn’t part of the deal, nor are soft words, or feelings, or kisses that don’t lead to fucking. It’s not what Dan asked for, and it’s certainly not why someone would choose to fuck their friend slash flatmate slash colleague who they absolutely don’t have any feelings for.

Drunken Nonsense (ao3) - Spring_Haze

Summary: Young Dan and Phil end up playing their own drunken version of truth or dare following a few too many cocktails at the Lester Family Christmas Gathering in Phil’s family home. Confessions are made, and two best friends become lovers.

How Life Changes (ao3) - madd09

Summary: Phil had no idea how much his life was going to change when Cornelia and Martyn announced they were expecting and how it would end up being a catalyst for him and Dan,

Keep These Secrets In A Lie (ao3) - CanDanAndPhilNot (enbycalhoun)

Summary: Dan and Phil are friends. But friends don’t act the way they do.

Like a cicada rhythm. (ao3) - emmibug

Summary: every night they share the same bed, legs twisted together, arms holding each other close. dan and phil haven’t grown up from their childlike sense of friendship which leads people to believe there’s something deeper going on.

a dan and phil childhood best friends to lovers AU where they share the same bed and always have done.

Midnight Cab Rides to You (ao3) - QueenKatelynTheAristocrat

Summary: “Whenever he felt the spiralling of his thoughts that indicated an impending breakdown, there was only ever one place he would go. He wondered how many breakdowns he had left before Phil got sick of him.”

Also known as: Dan can’t stand another damn minute on campus, so he does the only thing he can think of to make himself feel like he isn’t dying. He gets a cab to Phil’s flat.

never quite as it seems (ao3) - Ablissa

Summary: Phil has a unique gift that allows him to see something he never expected to see - his best friend Dan, meeting the person that would most likely become the love of his life. It hasn’t happened yet, and right now, Dan has no idea what lies ahead.

When old feelings resurface and every choice may have a big impact on the upcoming events, will Phil be able to make the right decision?

Stars in His Eyes (ao3) - harleymoony

Summary: Once every week, Dan and Phil sneak out of their houses to go stargazing together. Tonight is Dan’s birthday, and Phil has something planned for that, of course.

stuck on you (ao3) - watergator

Summary: dan finds himself in a rather awkward predicament and phil ends up having to helping him

you only know you love him when you let him go (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: Dan was sitting on his beanbag chair and nodding along to Phil’s story, tossing a ball into the air as he stared at his best friend.

While Phil continued describing how pretty Amanda looked and how amazing the movie was, Dan was focused on Phil himself. He let his eyes roam over Phil’s face, catching on shiny irises and sharp cheekbones and pink lips, and thinking of how much he’d love to feel those lips against his own.

And suddenly, everything made sense to Dan.

He froze, the ball falling on his head as his chest filled with terror. Phil continued with his story, delightfully oblivious to the panic attack Dan was two seconds away from having. He was attracted to his best friend, and big time, too, but Phil now had a girlfriend, and one he’d been wanting for over two years.

Well, fuck.

You’re All my Reasons (ao3) - QueenKatelynTheAristocrat

Summary: “Phil wished he could think of the right thing to say. It would be nice if at times like this his English Language degree knowledge would kick in and provide him with the words to make Dan understand that he could tell Phil anything, that there was nothing he could say that would scare Phil away, but alas.”

In which Dan’s depression doesn’t allow him to leave his room for two days, and Phil struggles to find the words, but what comes to realize is that maybe words aren’t always necessary.

Just a bit of hurt/comfort fluff to get you through your day.

You're The Only Friend I Need (ao3) - microwaveoven

Summary: Little snippets of Dan and Phil's lives from childhood to 2024. Based on the idea if they had been friends since they were kids and went to the same school

You set my soul alight (ao3) - Wolf_Of_Westeros

Summary: Dan likes Phil. Phil likes Dan. Neither of them know about it.

[denimbex1986]

'If you're the type of person to double tap edits of Josh O'Connor's glistening thighs in Challengers, or the kind of fan still favoriting clips of Andrew Scott's Hot Priest "kneel" command, you may have recently been led down another digital path: Celebrity-centric audio erotica.

A relatively new phenomenon pioneered by audio erotica apps like Dipsea and Quinn, actors have taken on the role of smut narrator, much to their fans' delight...Most recently, the Hot Priest himself recorded a three-episode story for Quinn portraying a queen's guard with unresolved feelings for a fiery rebel...

Caroline Spiegel, Quinn's founder, hopes the platform can use celebrities and horniness for celebrities to remove some of the shame around talking about sex. "Women and queer people have been trained that talking about their sexuality, talking about sex, talking about masturbation, is not good. Whether it's from a place of purity culture or homophobia or misogyny or slut shaming, it's in [the] way them having a happy relationship with sex," she explained to Mashable. "What's cool about [Quinn Originals] is it's really easy to talk about because you're not talking about sex, you're talking about Andrew Scott, you're not talking about masturbation, you're talking about Jesse Williams and Grey's Anatomy."

The comments on Quinn's social posts reflect those language habits, with fans flooding its pages with requests and comparisons to their other celeb or fictional faves. Following the release of Scott's first episode, Spiegel posted a TikTok video, captioned, "Pitch me on your Quinn celeb casting ​​👀🎧." Spiegel explained to Mashable that this is part of a strategy to find celebrities, and even influencers, who already have built-in "thirst fandoms."

Tyler McCall, the author behind Scott's "The Queen's Guard," explained the levels of fiction and fandom involved in writing a Quinn Original...

When commissioned for Scott's story, McCall said she perceived the writing process cinematically, almost like writing a movie script. And she pulled in a lot of pop culture inspiration, like Game of Thrones and the sixth installment of a '90s PC game called "King's Quest." "I was thinking a lot about Star Wars. There's always a 'Reylo' at the scene of the crime," she said...

Quinn aims to offer a less stigmatized way to explore sexuality for women. Spiegel sees fanfic — which Gesselman's observations backs up — and celebrity crushes as female experiences. "The female erotic mentality is very much around who the person is, and what's their backstory and what's happening. Female eroticism is sort of like a detective. You're trying to figure out: Who is this person? What's happening? Are they safe? Where are they? What's going on? Celebrity culture, the fanfic culture, reflects that," explained Spiegel. Quinn taps into those desires.

There's a sense of safety for listeners provided by discussing sexuality through celebrity. Not only is the fan listener familiar with Scott's voice and has a pre-existing relationship with his work, but the celebrity is consenting to the erotic content and Quinn co-signs it. It's not like the fan-for-fan erotic fanfiction that's produced and consumed on the depths of the internet. Instead, there are multiple faces for Quinn's content, both Spiegel on its TikTok and the celebrity partners.

"Quinn's whole thing is erotic content and historically it has been this very overly graphic, off-putting uncomfortable genre. Our bet is that it doesn't have to be that way, it can actually be something that's talked about over coffee with friends. That's a really mainstream, normalized, happy, healthy part of life," said Spiegel...

With the continued growth of celebrity obsession, technology is changing the availability of celeb fantasy materials to fans. In January, deepfake pornographic images of Taylor Swift went viral on X, spurring a debate about the ethics of AI tech, celebrity idolatry, and the government's role in stopping this harmful content...The rise of AI technology brings a celebrity's — and all of our — right to their likeness into sharper focus.

But if a celebrity can get ahead of this technology (and sometimes even their own fanbase), then maybe they can exert some control — or at least that's what Spiegel proposes. It may explain a celeb's unexpected collaboration with less explicit, non-visual platforms like Quinn. While the site's marketplace of creator-uploaded audios speak directly to the person masturbating, almost like phone sex McCall explains, celebrity-narrated Quinn Originals ask listeners to become a character themselves, distancing users from celebs even further.

"This is a way for celebrities who have this sort of thirst culture around them to say, 'Hey, this is gonna be on my terms. I want to feel empowered doing this,'" said Spiegel. "'I'm acting in this real, elevated piece of art that's also sexual.' Being sexual doesn't have to feel degrading. It's actually a very empowering, cool thing to deal with sexuality. What I think does feel degrading is this AI porn that people make against your consent, or putting words in your mouth, or asking you inappropriate questions."

Additionally, it's not just that the celebrity is consenting to a Quinn Original, but consent itself is a major theme of all Quinn audios. Spiegel aims to bridge the gap of a topic that she sees as underrepresented in erotica. "[Consent] is a really hot thing that feels in line with the story," she said...'

[mariacallous]

For 20 years, the only way to really communicate privately was to use a widely hated piece of software called Pretty Good Privacy. The software, known as PGP, aimed to make secure communication accessible to the lay user, but it was so poorly designed that even Edward Snowden messed up his first attempt to use PGP to email a friend of Laura Poitras. It also required its users to think like engineers, which included participating in exceptionally nerdy activities like attending real-life “key-signing parties” to verify your identity to other users. Though anyone could technically use PGP, the barrier to entry was so high that only about 50,000 people used it at its peak, meaning that privacy itself was out of reach for most.

These days, to talk to a friend securely, all you have to do is download a free app. For a certain set, that app will be Signal. Snowden and Elon Musk have recommended it; it’s been name-dropped on big-budget shows like House of Cards, Mr. Robot, and Euphoria, and its users include journalists, members of the White House, NBA players, Black Lives Matters activists, and celebrities trying to get their hands on Ozempic. Its founder has been profiled by The New Yorker and appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast. A tiny organization with virtually no marketing budget has become synonymous with digital privacy in the public imagination.

Technology can be deeply shaped by the personal inclinations of a founder. Facebook’s light-fingeredness with user data is inseparable from its roots in Zuckerberg’s dorm room as an app for ranking women by their looks; Apple’s minimalist design was influenced by Jobs’ time spent practicing Zen Buddhism. Signal is no different. During its formative years, the charismatic face of Signal was Moxie Marlinspike, a dreadlocked anarchist who spent his time sailing around the world, living in punk houses, and serving free food to the unhoused. He led every aspect of Signal’s development for almost a decade, at one point complaining,  “I was writing all the Android code, was writing all of the server code, was the only person on call for the service, was facilitating all product development, and was managing everyone. I couldn’t ever leave cell service.”

In the field of cryptography, Marlinspike is considered the driving force behind bringing end-to-end encryption—the technology underlying Signal—to the real world. In 2017, Marlinspike and his collaborator, Trevor Perrin, received the Levchin Prize, a prominent prize for cryptographers, for their work on the Signal Protocol. Afterward, Dan Boneh, the Stanford professor who chaired the award committee, commented that he wasn’t sure that end-to-end encryption would have become widespread without Marlinspike’s work. At the very least, “it would have taken many more decades,” he said.

The motivations that led to end-to-end encryption going mainstream lie far out on the political fringe. The original impetus for Marlinspike’s entry into cryptography, around 2007, was to challenge existing power structures, particularly the injustice of how (as he put it) “Internet insecurity is used by people I don’t like against people I do: the government against the people.” But sticking to anarchism would imply an almost certain defeat. As Marlinspike once noted, the “trail of ideas that disappears into the horizon behind me is completely and utterly mined over with failures … Anarchists are best known for their failures.”

For an idealistic engineer to succeed, he will have to build something that is useful to many. So there has also been an unusually pragmatic bent to Signal’s approach. Indeed, in many interviews, Marlinspike has taken a mainstream stance, insisting that “Signal is just trying to bring normality to the internet.” Signal’s success depends on maintaining its principled anarchist commitments while finding a wide-ranging appeal to the masses, two goals that might seem at odds. Examining how the app navigates this tension can help us understand what might come next in Signal’s new quest to reach “everyone on the planet.”

Released after WhatsApp  set the standards for messaging, Signal’s problem has always been how to keep up with its competition—a fine dance between mimicry (so as to seem familiar to new users) and innovation (to poach users from its competitors). Signal started off by copying WhatsApp's user experience, while at the same time pioneering end-to-end encryption, a feature that WhatsApp turned around and copied from Signal. Throughout this evolutionary dance, Signal has managed to maintain an unusual focus on the autonomy of the individual, a wariness of state authority, and an aversion to making money, characteristics that are recognizably anarchist.

Because a small fringe of cypherpunks, Marlinspike included, came to see cryptography as a way to remedy the imbalance of power between the individual and the state, Signal focused on getting end-to-end encryption on messages and calls absolutely right. With Signal, no one can read your messages. Amazon can’t, the US government can’t, Signal can’t. The same is true for voice calls and metadata: A user’s address book and group chat titles are just as safe. Signal knows basically nothing about you, other than your phone number (which is not mapped to your username), the time you created your account, and the time you last used the app. Your data can’t be sold to others or cause ads to follow you around on the internet. Using Signal is just like talking with your friend in the kitchen.

Because Signal is committed to retaining as little metadata as possible, that makes it hard for it to implement new features that are standard to other apps. Signal is essentially footing the cost of this commitment in engineer-hours, since implementing popular features like group chats, address books, and stickers all required doing novel research in cryptography. That Signal built them anyway is a testament to its desire for mass appeal.

Signal also pioneered features that gave individuals more autonomy over their information, such as disappearing messages (which WhatsApp later adopted) and a feature that let users blur faces in a photo (which it rapidly rolled out to support the Black Lives Matter protests). At the same time, Signal has garnered users' trust because its code is open source, so that security researchers can verify that its end-to-end encryption is as strong as the organization claims.

For the ordinary user, though, individual autonomy and privacy may not be as important. On WhatsApp, users accept that it will be very hard to figure out what exactly the app knows about you and who it might be shared with. Users’ information is governed by an ever-shifting labyrinth of grudging caveats and clauses like “we will share your transaction data and IP address with Facebook” and “we can’t see your precise location, but we’ll still try to estimate it as best as we can” and “we will find out if you click on a WhatsApp share button on the web.” WhatsApp is also closed-source, so its code can’t be audited. If using Signal is like talking in a friend’s kitchen, using WhatsApp is like meeting at a very loud bar—your conversation is safe, but you’re exposed, and you’ll have to pay for your place.

If you’re not an anarchist, you may be less worried about a shadowy state and more worried about actual people you know. People in your community might be harassing you in a group chat, an abusive ex might be searching your chats for old photos to leak, or your child might have gotten access to your unlocked phone. WhatsApp’s features better support a threat model that is sensitive to interpersonal social dynamics: You can leave groups silently, block screenshots for view-once messages, and lock specific chats. WhatsApp can even view the text of end-to-end encrypted messages that have been reported by a user for moderation, whereas Signal has no moderation at all.

Idealists have called centralization one of the main ills of the internet because it locks users into walled gardens controlled by authoritarian companies. In a great stroke of pragmatism, Signal chose to be centralized anyway. Other encrypted-messaging apps like Matrix offer a federated model akin to email, in which users across different servers can still communicate through a shared protocol. (Someone on Gmail can still email someone on Yahoo, whereas someone on Facebook Messenger can’t contact someone on Signal.) This federated approach more closely mirrors anarchy; it could theoretically be better, because there would be no single point of failure and no single service provider for a government to pressure. But federated software creates a proliferation of different clients and servers for the same protocol, making it hard to upgrade. Users are already used to centralized apps that behave like Facebook or Twitter, and email has already become centralized into a few main service providers. It turns out that being authoritarian is important for maintaining a consistent user experience and a trusted brand, and for rolling out software updates quickly. Even anarchism has its limits.

What Signal has accomplished so far is impressive. But users famously judge software not on how much it can do, but on how much it can’t. In that spirit, it’s time to complain.

Because of Signal’s small team, limited funding, and the challenges of implementing features under end-to-end encryption, the app bafflingly lacks a number of important features. It doesn’t have encrypted backups for iOS; messages can only be transferred between phones. If you lose your iPhone, you lose all your Signal chat history.

Signal also doesn’t do a good job serving some of its core users. Activists and organizers deal with huge amounts of messages that involve many people and threads, but Signal’s interface lacks ways to organize all this information. These power users’ group chats become so unwieldy that they migrate to Slack, losing the end-to-end encryption that brought them to Signal in the first place. It’s common to try and make multiple group chats between the same people to manage all their threads. When users are hacking “desire paths” into your interface to create a new feature, or leaving because of the lack of the feature, that’s a strong hint that something is missing.

WhatsApp and Telegram, on the other hand, are leading the way on defining how group chats can scale up. WhatsApp “communities” gather different private group chats in one place, better mimicking the organization of a neighborhood or school that may be discussing several things at once. Telegram’s social media “channel” features are better for broadcasting info en masse, though Telegram’s lack of moderation has been blamed for attracting the kind of fringe crowd that has been banned from all other platforms.

It's no exaggeration to say that small features in a chat app encode different visions of how society should be organized. If the first reacji in the palette was a thumbs down rather than a heart, maybe we would all be more negative, cautious people. What kind of social vision did Signal arise from?

“Looking back, I and everyone I knew was looking for that secret world hidden in this one,” Marlinspike admitted in a 2016 interview. A key text in anarchist theory describes the idea of a “temporary autonomous zone,” a place of short-term freedom where people can experiment with new ways to live together outside the confines of current social norms. Originally coined to describe “pirate utopias” that may be apocryphal, the term has since been used to understand the life and afterlife of real-world DIY spaces like communes, raves, seasteads, and protests. And Signal is, unmistakably, a temporary autonomous zone that Marlinspike has spent almost a decade building.

Because temporary autonomous zones create spaces for the radical urges that society represses, they keep life in the daytime more stable. They can sometimes make money in the way that nightclubs and festivals do. But temporary autonomous zones are temporary for a reason. Over and over, zone denizens make the same mistake: They can’t figure out how to interact productively with the wider society. The zone often runs out of money because it exists in a world where people need to pay rent. Success is elusive; when a temporary autonomous zone becomes compelling enough to threaten daytime stability, it may be violently repressed. Or the attractive freedoms offered by the zone may be taken up in a milder form by the wider society, and eventually the zone ceases to exist because its existence has pressured wider society to be a little more like it. What kind of end might Signal come to?

There are reasons to think that Signal may not be around for very long. The nonprofit’s blog, meant to convince us of the elite nature of its engineers, has the unintentional effect of conveying the incredible difficulty of building any new software feature under end-to-end encryption. Its team numbers roughly 40; Marlinspike has just left the organization. Achieving impossible feats may be fun for a stunt hacker with something to prove, but competing with major tech companies’ engineering teams may not be sustainable for a small nonprofit with Marlinspike no longer at the helm.

Fittingly for an organization formerly led by an anarchist, Signal lacks a sustainable business model, to the point where you might almost call it anti-capitalist. It has survived so far in ways that don’t seem replicable, and that may alienate some users. Signal is largely funded by a big loan from a WhatsApp founder, and that loan has already grown to $100 million. It has also accepted funding from the US government through the Open Technology Fund. Because Signal can’t sell its users’ data, it has recently begun developing a business model based on directly providing services to users and encouraging them to donate to Signal in-app. But to get enough donations, the nonprofit must grow from 40 million users to 100 million. The company’s aggressive pursuit of growth, coupled with lack of moderation in the app, has already led Signal employees themselves to publicly question whether growth might come from abusive users, such as far-right groups using Signal to organize.

But there are also reasons for hope. So far, the most effective change that Signal has created is arguably not the existence of the app itself, but making it easy for WhatsApp to bring Signal-style end-to-end encryption to billions of users. Since WhatsApp’s adoption, Facebook Messenger, Google’s Android Messages, and Microsoft’s Skype have all adopted the open source Signal Protocol, though in milder forms, as the history of temporary autonomous zones would have us guess. Perhaps the existence of the Signal Protocol, coupled with demand from increasingly privacy-conscious users, will encourage better-funded messaging apps to compete against each other to be as encrypted as possible. Then Signal would no longer need to exist. (In fact, this resembles Signal’s original theory of change, before they decided they would rather compete with mainstream tech companies.)

Now, as the era of the global watercooler ends, small private group chats are becoming the future of social life on the internet. Signal started out a renegade, a pirate utopia encircled by cryptography, but the mainstream has become—alarmingly quickly—much closer to the vision Signal sought. In one form or another, its utopia just might last.

[ladybuggirl123]

Fascism/Flop Eras/The Art Of The Rebrand

If the tone of this post is completely different from last week it’s because my prozac just started working!! If i came off as obsessive and impulsive it’s because i was!! i’m working on it 😁

Alright, Where did we leave off?…

Emotional Terrorism I believe it was-

I now see how entirely dramatic this phrase is(tysm prozac). I probably need to watch my provocative language, I’ve never In my life been a chill or fun girlfriend.

If “emotional terrorist” is a fitting title for any of these people honestly who could blame them, i’m basically an emotional fascist. After my regime is overthrown I have to rebrand obviously.

Teenager’s (and me), are calling this “having an era” . A little google action reminded me this all started with the “Flop Era”

This is what a flop era looks like for the unfamiliar:

this is what getting ur emotionally fascist empire taken down by a emotional terrorist does to a mf

#bringbackcryingselfies

i think i almost bought a “flop era” tshirt in 2021 but i went with ironically hot instead

simpler times…lol

Anyway all the sudden everypony online was in their fleabag era or their reputation era. It’s 2023 Taylor Swift’s having her eras tour and now I barely remember who I was before it became a part of the cultural zeitgeist for a normal non celebrity girl to have definable eras.

here are a few favorites of mine:

i don’t endorse any of these eras also i think i probably do this to an unhealthy degree

bpd grrl era:

grunge post woke fleabag on vyvanse era:

the I ready theory (only lasch) era

looking like I play a [REDACTED] in a [REDACTED] era:

Rebranding isn’t a new thing at all but hyper specific digital language used to describe how you express yourself obviously is and this is a tired conversation at this point.

How is “I’m in my looksmaxxed bushwick kinderwhore era” a thing you could say and how did I get to a point in my life where i know exactly what that would mean. It’s internet buzzword salad and it feels like it’s too much information for my brain to be storing and holding onto at all times (is this where my ancestors kept the berry forageing knowledge? is this really what i’m using it for??)

quick grass touching break 4 u

whatever mental illness i have was designed to pick this shit apart for hours so sometimes this all drives me a little nuts but it’s ok cause i’m a mental health warrior💪🏼

When you feel it’s time for your new era you could sift through pinterest rabbit holes and tiktok echochambers trying to find the perfect niche that describes the new and improved you. You’ll probably find a corner of the internet with other people just like you who like all the same esoteric celebrities you do, who listen to the same underground bands and who all talk the same cool way. But they are all doing it a little better than you.

Then you wake up from the digital coma you slipped into from stemming from unsupervised internet access at a young age, and you realize this is the dumbest shit in the world and ur actually and literally a full ass adult..

🎀Here is my personal plan of action for a non internet poisoned rebrand:🎀

Step 1- The Transformational Event

This could be a breakup, a breakdown, a move, or just a general realization that challenges all ideas you previously had about yourself.

Step 1.5- Deep Emotional Pain

😁

Step 2- Get Ur Ass up

Envision the you that has moved on and no longer feels held down by the emotional weight of the situation. How do they spend their free time? What passions are they pursuing ? what kind of people do they surround themselves with? lastly how do they dress how would they adorn their space? Work from the inside out.

Instead of looking up glass skin healed french girl aesthetic on pinterest you could journal about this version of you or even make a physical vision board.

Step 3- Faking it

Initially you might feel like you are not mentally stable or cool enough or whatever to be this person. But the person is you and the only way you can become them is to just start.

Step 4- God and Faeries take over

Spoiler alert: what i referred to as “faking it” in the last step is also called vibrating at a higher frequency. As I type this out I’m aware that i only maybe half believe it but also this has always worked for me my whole life so……

The circumstances in your life will basically rise to meet you where you are. you’ll start to realize you have the types of friends the new version of you would, you’ll develop the habits you wanted to and you’ll realize you have faked it till you made it.

Step 5- You are sexier and doing better than you ever imagined!

As time goes by and you think back to yourself immediately after the initial transformational event you’ll realize you have become even cooler and happier and more grown up than you hoped you’d be

If u did this right you’ll also feel a little bit of gratitude for the transformational experience because it basically provided a short cut for ur prefrontal cortex development.

that’s all the knowledge i have on this phenomenon here’s a tiktok and a podcast episode that probably inspired me to write this

[purplesurveys]

1823

Would you rather have another job?  I would, but the job market sucks and it's been a challenge trying to apply to new ones even though I had been actively looking every day of February. I got a little impatient so I've ultimately settled for a new role, still in my current workplace – so I've still resigned from my current post, but the new role will allow me to continue to be in the industry I like while removing the shit I don't want to deal with and had originally resigned over.

Did you ever live in a house with more than one story?  I currently do. It was the house I grew up in that didn't have an extra floor.

What room of your home do you spend most time in? My bedroom, since it's also my workspace.

Is your second toe longer than your big toe?  Just super slightly, but yeah.

Have you ever given yourself a tattoo?  Nope.

Do you own any clothes you wouldn’t wear in front of your mother?  Not really.

Do you have health insurance?  Just Philhealth. What are some medical issues you’re currently dealing with?  Just what I'm presently sensing as anemia, but other than that there aren't any.

Why did you last take pain medication?  Can't even recall. I just apply a cooling ointment whenever my back and shoulders are sore lol, and I've been proactively lessening my Biogesic intake because I don't want to be too dependent on it every time I get a headache.

What physical traits have you inherited from your father?  I find that my smile and mouth are similar to his. I think my eyes too? Idk but in general I'm the most well-balanced among me and my siblings when it comes to genetics haha, so it's hard for me to tell which of my features look more like my mom's or my dad's.

How about your mother?  My overall face structure? IDK IT'S REALLY HARD TO TELL LOL

What personality traits do you wish your children would inherit from you? I take pride in how devoted and loyal I am in my friendships, so it'd be nice for my hypothetical and likely-to-never-exist kids to get that from me. Also, passion for their hobbies! I'd listen to my kids ramble on all day about whatever it is they're interested/invested in.

What parts of the world are your ancestors from?  Philippines, and that's pretty much it lol. I don't think I have ancestors from Spain.

Have you ever had a strange pet, outside of the normal animals people keep?  No.

Do you believe in astrology?  Hell no.

Do you drive an electric car?  No. It just wouldn't be the smartest decision to get one at this point as we barely have the technology or network to make owning an electric car a feasible long-term thing. Philippines was already late as it is when it came to the internet, so I imagine it would be the same - perhaps even longer - with the electric cars.

Do you like facial hair on guys or do you prefer the clean shaven look?  Eh, it depends on how they look with the hair.

Who was your first celebrity crush?  It was a tie between Zac Efron and Ashley Tisdale, haha.

Are you good with kids?  I honestly don't know. I was good with kids before as a First-Born Asian Daughter™ lol, but I haven't been arounds kids in YEARS so idk if my abilities still hold up.

Are you usually late, early, or right on time?  At this point tbh I'm a mix of all three. I try to make it on time but it sometimes also depends on how invested I am in the thing I'm supposed to be at. I arrived at the Seventeen concert by 11 AM, but at work I will sometimes arrive at 10:30 AM lol.

Are you good at applying makeup?  I'm horrible at it, but that's also because I'm not the least bit interested in makeup.

Do you like pastel colored hair?  It's alright!

What do you think about the most?  Career options, opportunities to take care of myself or find new hobbies...I've been getting paranoid about mortality lately as well and I hate it.

Do you like to see it snowing outside?  I wish I could experience that, but I don't live in a country with snow.

Do you have your national flag hanging up anywhere outside your house?  Nopes.

Have you ever been in a choir?  I have not.

Do you look older or younger than you actually are?  I used to get 'younger' all the time, but idk now. Work may have aged me physically enough to start actually looking 25 hahaha.

When is the next time you’ll be up on stage?  I'm assuming June because my mom has asked me to host a surprise party we're doing for my paternal grandparents. I never committed to it, but I know ultimately it'll come down to me hosting anyway lol.

Where did you spend your last birthday at?  I was just at home. My friends came over though.

What was the last show that you watched a full episode of?  Friends.

Is there anything you need to work on doing soon?  Little bit, yeah.

Were you ever a boy or girl scout?  I was not.

Do you take your medications in the morning or at night?  I don't take any medication at all.

Have you ever bought a YouTuber’s merch?  Nah, merch is usually next to impossible to get when you're from an Asian country that's not Japan anyway. The merchiest I got with YouTubers was going to the first-ever YouTube Fanfest haha.

What is the best type of donut?  I like a good classic – chocolate frosting with sprinkles! My favorite local doughnut shop also makes this fantastic roasted brown butter brioche doughnut that I could have every day.

Do you like thrift stores?  Not the first place I would go to, but still willing to check them out.

What is your town known for?  Aesthetic cafes with shitty food, car accidents, pilgrimages, and our waterfalls. We're all over the place lmao.

Have you ever used a fake name at Starbucks?  I once referred to myself as Audrey as in Audrey Hepburn but it came back as fucking Aujie hahahaha. Haven't really done it since because I don't see the point.

What color is your lava lamp?  I've never had one.

Who is your favorite Lisa Frank character?  We were too short on money for my parents to be spending overpriced Lisa Frank shit on me.

What’s your favorite movie that you remember seeing in the theater?  Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Do you know anyone who has ten cats?  I think Val may have? She posts about her cats all the time and it's always different ones every time lol.

Have you ever had a cat?  My sister had Arlee.

Have you ever had a dog?  Yes, three of them.

Have you ever any other kind of animal?  Yes.

Have you ever had a pet rock?  That I never have.

What were you voted in the senior class polls?  We don't have that tradition.

Who was your favorite teacher in high school?  My music teacher. I never even liked what she taught, but she had a teaching style that let her relate life lessons to whatever music theory she was explaining at the moment and that resonated with me all throughout high school.

Do you want to give your kids common names or unique names?  Common, but not too mainstream in that they can still stand out but also not get bullied.

What collection are you thinking of starting?  I currently collect BTS merch and I plan on continuing it, especially since I'm not even done getting all the albums yet.

Do you organize your clothes by color?  No, I just have them fixed according to article of clothing.

What do you want to name your first child?  I've stopped having a go-to pick for a name because I've also stopped wanting kids.

List ten favorite girls names.  Mia, Scarlett, Charlotte, Emilia, Harper, Elliott, Lily, Juliana, Rosie, Dylan.

List ten favorite boys names.  Seth, Liam, James, Lucas, Julian, Matteo, Noah, Owen, Jacob, Leon.

What season do you want to get married in?  Continued from last night. We don't have seasons but I'd pick out a colder month – so anywhere between December to February.

Is your Pinterest cluttered?  I don't use Pinterest enough to make boards.

What is your favorite insect?  None of them.

What bugs scare you?  All of them, but especially cockroaches.

Who picked your name, your mom or your dad?  My dad picked my first name, my mom chose my second.

Have you ever fallen asleep in a significant other’s arms?  Sure.

Do you have a television in your room? If you do, is it one of the old school big ones? Or i it a new flat screen?  I do. It's a flat-screen but it's not a new TV – it was originally from our living room until we got a new one last year. Anyway, the TV I have is like 16 years old.

What was your favorite cartoon or television show as a child? What about movie?  I liked Spongebob and Drake & Josh. For movies, Toy Story was and continues to be my favorite.

Did you have sleepovers at your friends’ houses a lot as a child? Or did your friends come over to your house more often?  No. I was never really allowed to, but also I didn't have many friends so eh. As for me, I lived in a very crowded duplex so the house was never the most visitor-friendly.

Do you have any significantly older siblings?  No, our age gaps are small.

When opening presents on Christmas or birthdays, do you first try to guess what is in the package? Do you tear the wrap off slowly, or just rip it to shreds? Are you polite no matter what the gift, and say you love it anyways?  I rip it to shreds haha, and yes I always say thank you.

What happened last time you got drunk?  I dropped a wine glass and injured my foot.

What are you listening to?  Friends.

Which parent do you feel the most affection for?  My dad.

How do you feel about God?  "If there is a God, He will have to beg for my forgiveness.” A quote that reached fame by being found carved in a concentration camp wall. And I will forever agree with it, violently so. <– I like this answer. < There you go. <--- yep. < That's the best answer yet, because that's exactly how I feel with the shit I went through growing up.

Which platform do you use to listen to music on the most?  Spotify.

Who do you care about the most?  Myself and my dogs.

[elfwreck]

TERFs and the alt-right nazi crowd are fighting hard because they are losing. They can feel themselves being squeezed out, in ways they couldn't when they had to keep their heads down, when public opinion was mostly "hey live and let live."

With Trump and the new wave of pro-fascist politics, they came out from under the rocks they'd been hiding beneath. And they celebrated and cheered and marched openly and declared that they were The True Majority Of The Normal People.

And they caused a lot of damage.

But.

They're not the true majority. And that became apparent pretty quickly. Because when they were quiet mutterings in the background, nobody challenged them. Once they're speaking openly and demanding policy changes...

They get some. But they get slammed hard for others. And the people who aren't in a position to challenge the policy changes are still able to make them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome.

There are TERFs who tweet about "my friends always say 'terfs should die' and I have to just cringe and keep quiet, oh no."

There is anti-TERF graffiti on cis-only health care centers.

There are TERF forums full of hand-wringing because "oh noes the TRAs" (trans rights activists) "are so hateful against us! We can't just be ourselves anywhere!!!"

If you have to hide in tiny corners of the internet and can't tell your friends what you think, you are not part of the majority. You are not the "normal people" that shape the main part of societal culture.

The key point is: They're losing, and they can tell, so they're lashing out with every bit of the resources and faux-respectability they've managed to accumulate over the last several decades.

It's an ugly storm, and it's going to hurt a lot of people - but it's going to pass.

Because for all they call themselves "gender-critical," they are terrified of a society where gender doesn't matter. Where a person's biological traits aren't considered part of a social role package. Where infants aren't separated into Team Pink and Team Blue and treated differently. Where a teenager is welcome to date whoever they like, as long as that person likes them back. Where how sweet and gentle or assertive and active a person is, they can decide to aspire to any job, any type of education, any partner or partners.

Where people can be asexual or monogamous or polyamorous or outright sluts, and as long as they approach their relationships with care, nobody minds.

TERFs are so, so scared of the future where nobody thinks social roles are pre-ordained by anatomy. They fight to deny any research that points out that no, having a penis and testosterone does not make people cruel; having a vagina and periods does not make people nurturing and compassionate - those are learned behaviors.

The only reason they're not being squished harder, is not because many people secretly agree with them. It's because many people can't believe it matters. A coworker in the office transitions and there's an awkward stretch of trying to remember a new name and new pronouns but... so what?

The TERFs have gone begging in the alt-right and fascist communities because the general public does not want to care about gender politics. Does not care who uses what names, what pronouns, wears what clothes.

And they find some support among the crowd who thinks women are supposed to be weak, helpless breeders. But. They also get pushback, even in "traditional" communities, who actually look at what's going on and say, "I don't know why the hell this matters but no, we should NOT be strip-searching 11-year-old kids to find out what sports team they can play on."

I'm not saying it'll be easy or smooth. Just: They are losing. Their base was a lot stronger 40 years ago. They're now more visible, more active, more directly politically influential... but there aren't more of them, and their numbers aren't growing.

They're trying to do as much damages as they can before they fade out.

If I can get tooth-rottingly sincere for a second? TERFs and radfems are destined to lose in the end. A movement centered on hating others- especially a demographic that is and always has been present in every culture and group throughout history, and always will be- is utterly unsustainable. It is forced to prey on the vulnerable in order to recruit, and that kind of hatred just… weighs on you, colours your perceptions and makes you unable to engage with the world in a healthy way, drains you until you’re just an empty husk. If every trans person were wiped off the face of the earth today and every mention of us redacted from all history, there would still be kids born tomorrow who look at their assigned gender and go ‘hm. don’t like that’ and do something different. They would find people just like themselves and we would persist. I have no idea what the world is going to look like when I am long gone, but I know for certain that there will be trans people in it, just as there will be gays and lesbians, there will be bisexuals, aces, aros, nonbinary folk and EVERY infinitesimal point within the queer spectrum, because its simply not possible to expunge us from the world without eradicating all of humanity. That’s the thought that keeps me going, you know? Even leaving aside gender stuff- the urge to self-create and self-express, and the urge to love ourselves and love each other- it’s woven into our very natures! No matter what happens, that light can’t be snuffed out. Thank you for your time, and stay hydrated.

[erotic4ugf]

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Psychological and Social Impact of Explicit Content Consumption

Influence on Relationships and Interpersonal Behavior

Regular consumption of nude women videos and similar explicit content can influence the way people perceive and conduct their relationships. Studies indicate that high exposure to adult content can lead to unrealistic expectations in relationships, as well as an objectification of partners. The portrayal of intimacy in these videos is often dramatized, shaping unrealistic ideas about affection and physical intimacy that can be damaging when applied to real-life relationships.

For individuals who internalize these portrayals, there may be challenges in maintaining healthy, realistic relationships. The expectation of constant perfection in intimacy can lead to dissatisfaction and strain between partners, and in some cases, individuals may struggle to differentiate between media portrayals and real-life emotional connections.

Effects on Self-Perception and Body Image

The impact of nude women videos extends to self-perception and body image. When viewers are consistently exposed to unrealistic portrayals of beauty and physical appearance, they may begin to judge themselves against these ideals. This can be particularly damaging for women, who may feel pressured to conform to the body standards they see represented in explicit media. Men, too, can develop unrealistic expectations about women’s appearance and behavior.

These media-driven body standards can foster self-esteem issues and even contribute to mental health challenges, such as anxiety or depression. Societal pressures around appearance and the glorification of specific physical types can lead individuals to feel inadequate, affecting their confidence and self-worth.

Potential Desensitization and Impact on Empathy

Another consequence of frequent exposure to explicit content is the potential desensitization to intimate or personal situations. When people regularly consume nude women videos, they may become less sensitive to the emotional depth associated with intimacy. This can hinder their ability to empathize with others in romantic or interpersonal contexts, as relationships become viewed through a lens of instant gratification rather than emotional connection.

Desensitization can also lead to an increased tolerance for invasive behaviors, reducing empathy for those whose privacy might be compromised. This is evident in the public fascination with celebrity sex videos, where individuals often disregard the emotional and psychological impact on those involved. The desensitizing effect reinforces a culture where consent and privacy are undervalued.

Legal and Ethical Considerations in the Distribution of Nude and Celebrity Sex Videos

Privacy Rights and Consent

One of the primary concerns surrounding nude women videos and celebrity sex videos is the issue of consent. Many such videos are shared or leaked without the consent of those involved, infringing on their privacy rights. This has led to a growing push for stronger legal protections against revenge porn and unauthorized distribution of explicit content.

While laws surrounding adult content have become more stringent in some jurisdictions, enforcement remains challenging. In some cases, victims find it difficult to seek justice, as legal systems struggle to keep pace with the rapid distribution capabilities of the internet. The ethical implications here extend beyond the legal realm, as society grapples with respecting personal boundaries in an era where content can be easily shared without permission.

The Role of Technology Companies in Curbing Unauthorized Content

The responsibility of technology companies in controlling the spread of unauthorized nude videos and celebrity sex videos is another key consideration. Social media platforms, video-sharing sites, and web hosts have an obligation to monitor and remove non-consensual content from their platforms. While some have introduced policies and tools to detect and prevent the sharing of unauthorized videos, gaps in enforcement remain.

Proactive measures, such as automated detection tools and stringent content regulations, can help curb the spread of these videos. Moreover, tech companies must work closely with legal authorities and advocacy groups to create a safer online environment, emphasizing user privacy and consent as top priorities.

Societal Norms and Cultural Shifts

Evolving Views on Sexuality and Personal Boundaries

As explicit content becomes more mainstream, societal norms surrounding sexuality and personal boundaries are shifting. While some view this as a step toward open-mindedness and destigmatization of sexuality, others believe it risks normalizing voyeurism and diminishing respect for privacy.

The consumption of nude women videos and celebrity sex videos has sparked a cultural shift, where discussions about intimacy, consent, and self-expression are more common. In some ways, this shift has facilitated greater acceptance of individual choices and diversity in expression. However, it has also contributed to a blurring of lines around what constitutes acceptable public behavior and what should remain private.

Generation Gaps in Perception and Media Consumption

The impact of explicit content on society also highlights generational divides. Younger generations, who have grown up with easy access to the internet, may view explicit content as a normal part of their media consumption. In contrast, older generations often hold more conservative views, seeing the prevalence of such content as damaging to social values.

This generational gap can create misunderstandings and debates around the role of adult content in society. While some argue that media consumption should reflect evolving values, others worry that unrestricted access can erode traditional ideals around intimacy and respect.

Conclusion

The impact of nude women videos and celebrity sex videos on society is multifaceted, affecting everything from personal relationships to societal norms around privacy and consent. While some argue that such content promotes open-mindedness and self-expression, others caution against its potential to distort perceptions and erode respect for personal boundaries. The psychological effects, including impacts on body image, relationships, and empathy, reflect the deeper consequences of frequent exposure to explicit media.

Balancing the evolving landscape of adult content with ethical considerations and responsible consumption is essential for fostering a healthy society. Through education, stronger privacy laws, and responsible media practices, society can address these issues thoughtfully, ensuring that the consumption of adult content respects personal rights and maintains healthy social norms.

[erylonlyfans]

MIDLE & LATE CHILDHOOD

A time of life full of formative events and quick changes is childhood, which is intriguing. In an effort to learn more about their environment, a 12-year-old gifted child was interviewed recently. Through this conversation, the child shared thoughts about their physical changes, emotional development, and the joys and challenges they face as they grow.

During the early stages of the interview, one of the topics that was tackled is the physical changes which the child saw taking place when he was between the ages of seven and twelve. The child stated rather proudly that he had incorporated some growth in height and weight and was more active. In fact, they were keen in engaging in many forms of physical exercises and games, be it sports or playing with friends, which improved their self-esteem and general ability. On the issue of health maintenance activities, the child noted that it was their healthy eating habits and especially the consumption of fruits and vegetables, as motivated by their parents, that helped. Further, they disclosed their disability in this area because of their fondness for certain sporting activities that kept them trim and in reasonable fitness. also, good personal hygiene and health practices like visiting the doctor for check-ups were added to their normal undertakings showing that the child appreciated the necessity of being healthy from a tender age.

As the conversation progressed, the child was also asked about the shifts in his cognition as well as learning. They looked back to how they comprehend difficult concepts much more easily than they would before and have also been able to take interest in other subjects like science and history. They also stated that they had done research as well which they thought was useful in the course of doing their work in school. Upon being given new tasks, the child refused to be overwhelmed, characterizing as a person who never gives up. Instead, he often asked teachers and children for assistance and also turned to books and the internet for help, showing inventiveness and initiative in the learning process.

The interview also explored the topic of emotional regulation as the child grew up. They reported that they had become more aware of their inner feelings and the recognition of them improved. When they had sad or angry feelings, they contacted their moms and dads or friends and participated in sports as another way of relieving stress. At such a young age, it was encouraging to witness such cleverness and control over emotions.

When asked about their sweetest recollections, the child appeared bright and cheerful. Certain happy moments were narrating stories of playing with other children, going to school, and celebrating family events most importantly during holidays and birthdays. The delight derived from such experiences came out strongly presenting the idea that childhood is about connecting with people and having fun. To conclude, the child assessed the different experiences they have had, and lessons so far, including working hard, valuing friends, and spending time with family. They learned that being patient and optimistic were important weapons in dealing with difficulties, something that is not only relevant in childhood.

This interview offered a touching window into the experiences of a young person negotiating the challenges of growing up. The perspectives offered show a world full of wonder, difficulties, and priceless lessons, from bodily changes to emotional development. Reminding adults of the simplicity and joys of childhood, children's perseverance and optimism can teach them a lot. It is from discussions such as these that one gains a greater understanding of the maturation process and the value of raising the next generation.

[nniccolx]

Week 12: Crowd sourcing in times of crisis

welcome back to nn’s blog ˙✧˖°🌎 ༘ ⋆｡˚

Hello there my wonderful peeps! I hope you’re doing well. This is going to be my last blog post for the semester, and I wanted to end on something incredibly powerful and uplifting topic – Crowdsourcing in Times of Crisis. Let’s dive into how people come together online to make a real difference when the world needs it most.

So, what exactly is crowdsourcing? At its core, it’s about leveraging the collective power of a large group of people to solve problems, gather information, or generate ideas. When a crisis hits, whether it’s a natural disaster, a pandemic, or a humanitarian emergency, crowdsourcing becomes a vital tool for quick and effective response (Howe 2006).

Let’s rewind to some real-world examples. 

Do you guys remember the devastating Australian bushfires in 2019-2020? Social media was flooded with posts asking for donations, sharing information about safe havens for wildlife, and even coordinating volunteer efforts. Platforms like GoFundMe saw an outpouring of support, with people from all over the world donating to help those affected. One standout moment was when comedian Celeste Barber’s Facebook fundraiser raised over $50 million for firefighting services, showcasing the immense impact of digital communities rallying together (BBC News 2020).

ABC News reported about Celeste Barber raised $51 million for RFS & Brigades Donations Fund

While we often think of modern examples, the concept of collective action has been around for centuries. Take the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake in China, the deadliest earthquake in recorded history. Though there was no technology for crowdsourcing as we know it today, the communities banded together in remarkable ways. Local citizens and officials worked collectively to rebuild homes, share resources, and support each other through the aftermath. This historical example highlights the timeless nature of collective action in crisis situations (Spence et al. 2021).

The story about 1556 Shaanxi, China earthquake

Fast forward to the Sabah Mount Kinabalu earthquake in 2015. This disaster struck the beautiful Mount Kinabalu in Malaysia, leaving many stranded and in need of immediate assistance. Social media and crowdsourcing platforms became essential tools. People used Twitter and Facebook to share real-time updates, call for help, and coordinate rescue efforts. Volunteers, rescue teams, and locals collaborated through these channels to ensure a swift response, demonstrating the power of collective action in the face of tragedy (The Straits Times 2015).

The Straits Times reported about Sabah Mount Kinabalu earthquake in 2015

And let's not forget the power of information. During crises, crowdsourced information can be a lifesaver. Tools like Google’s Person Finder help reconnect people with loved ones after a disaster, while platforms like Ushahidi map reports from the ground in real-time, offering a clearer picture of what’s happening and where help is needed most.

The beauty of crowdsourcing lies in its democratizing power. It breaks down barriers, allowing anyone with an internet connection to contribute to meaningful solutions. However, it’s not without challenges. Ensuring the accuracy of information, coordinating large-scale efforts, and maintaining security are critical issues that need constant attention.

So, what’s the takeaway? Crowdsourcing leverages the collective power of individuals to provide support, share information, and bring about real change during crises.

"What we can achieve when we come together, even if only digitally."

This is the end of my blog for today! As this semester comes to an end, I just wanna say a huge thank you to all of you who’ve read my blogs! Thanks for being part of this journey 🫶🏻

Until next time! See ya <3

Reference

BBC News 2020, 'Australian bushfires: Celeste Barber's fundraiser reaches $50m', BBC News, 6 January, viewed 9 June 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51002889.

Howe, J 2006, 'The rise of crowdsourcing', Wired, vol. 14, no. 6, viewed 9 June 2024, https://www.wired.com/2006/06/crowds/.

Spence, P, Lachlan, K, Lin, X & Del Greco, M 2021, 'Collective action in times of crisis: An analysis of the 1556 Shaanxi earthquake', Journal of Historical Geography, vol. 71, pp. 36-44.

The Straits Times 2015, 'Mount Kinabalu earthquake: Social media abuzz with news of rescue efforts', The Straits Times, 7 June, viewed 9 June 2024, https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/mount-kinabalu-earthquake-social-media-abuzz-with-news-of-rescue-efforts.

[beyond-icelebrities]

Week 10- Digital Detox Experiment

1. DIGITAL DETOX Experiment: Leave your phone at home for one hour to take a walk in your neighborhood. Write down your observations when you return and draw a map of your path. (This is a hand drawn map, not a screen shot of Google or Apple Maps.) 

2.  Afterwards, take a photo of your hand drawn map to include in your book review. What did you observe? Did you notice animals, trees, sounds and sights that you'd never seen before? Did the experience provide any revelations? Were you anxious, relieved, inspired? 

To be completely honest, I do a one hour minimum walk EVERY SINGLE DAY to simply disconnect from the game of life and find space to breathe and be alone with my own thoughts... Getting to do this for an assignment was simply refreshing and natural. Because of my extensive walk history in my area (home away from home while I am working on an acting contract), I didn't necessarily see anything I hadn't seen before; I did however notice some beautiful birds (ducks, irises, and geese), a gorgeous sunset, and most importantly I noticed how at PEACE I felt.

2. What is your favorite quote from the book and why do you find it meaningful?

“Our very idea of productivity is premised on the idea of producing something new, whereas we do not tend to see maintenance and care as productive in the same way.”

This quote really resonates with me because as an artist this is truer than ever, in an economy where creation is the mere basis of not only our livelihood but "success". It isn't spoken about enough how productivity can look more internalized than what's usually expected.

3. Why do you think this book, released by indie publishing house Melville Press, became an unexpected bestseller during the height of the Covid19 pandemic? Her book was so successful, she recently released a second title, Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock.

During COVID times, society's idea of productivity kind of got turned on its side as people found themselves unable to go about their normal routines; the idea of comfort also became more individualized and niche because everyone was seemingly doing the same thing: everything but NOTHING. I think this book became an unexpected bestseller because honestly people definitely had more time to read as it is, but also I think there was a spiked interest in self-care and mental health during the pandemic. This was a time where people collectively were acknowledging how hard it can be to "spread yourself thin" especially in dire times.

4. How does the attention economy benefit from our social media activity and media streaming consumption?

The attention economy has a severe chokehold on people of all demographics simply because we now live in a world where not feeding into media consumption and social media algorithms is seen as abnormal. Because we are seemingly all so connected all over the world through social media platforms and applications, not only is the demand for content high but we can clearly see how life online can impact the real world in the form of "trends" which continue to feed into that exact economy.

5. How does this book relate to the topic of celebrity culture?

"CELEBRITY CULTURE is an essentially modern phenomenon that emerged amid such twentieth-century trends as urbanization and the rapid development of consumer culture. It was profoundly shaped by new technologies that make easily possible the mechanical reproduction of images and the extremely quick dissemination of images and information/News through such media as radio, cinema, television, and the Internet." -Encyclopedia.com

This book acknowledges that celebrity culture is inevitably growing, becoming wide spread and accepted.

6. Do you take digital detox breaks regularly? If yes, describe them. Were they more challenging during the quarantine era? Why?

I take one every single day, and they are my "escapes" even though in reality these moments end up being where I feel most present and comfortable with myself, so often times I just look at it as a necessity. I have to admit, during the quarantine era it was slightly more difficult to truly disconnect from the digital world when again, that was singlehandedly the way information was shared and seemingly all I COULD do was open my laptop or scroll on my phone for example.

7. Do you sleep with your phone or computer? Are you aware of the impacts on your sleep cycles and relaxation caused by 24/7 proximity? Have you experimented with leaving digital devices in a drawer or another room?

When I am on my own schedule I tend to fall asleep with my devices kind of carelessly to be honest. I have frequently fallen asleep with headphones on for example, connected to either my MacBook or my iPhone and haven't given much thought to it. It doesn't seem to affect my sleep cycle or relaxation as I actually have a form of codependency with music, leading to using electronics as my form of intaking as much music as possible. I could even argue I feel more at peace with my phone playing a random playlist vs. silence in the air. But I have experimented with leaving my digital devices say in the kitchen or something in a past relationship of mine... This habit lead to more one on one focused time with my partner which was the goal.

8. What does Odell mean by 'doing nothing?' Are we capable of doing nothing? 

Odell defines "doing nothing" as avoiding the constant need to feed into the attention economy and instead focusing one's time and energy on what they need as an individual. I think it is extremely hard to convince certain types of people in this day and age to truly do "doing nothing" justice, as many many people actually revolve around consumer culture, so as a whole I am not sure if "we" are capable of doing nothing if that makes sense.

9. What is the role of nature in Odell's book, in particular the role of birds? (P.S. Did you know that birdwatching became a HUGE pastime in the Covid era?)

Odell genuinely shares the same appreciation and love for nature as I do as a human being. She and I see beauty in the simplest of forms such as grass, trees, bodies of water; And we both see birds as symbols of freedom and easygoing.

[nat20marketing]

Hello fellow marketers. Welcome back to Nat 20 Marketing! As mentioned last week, we are going to talk about personalization this time!

Let’s start with a quick definition of what that word means when we apply it to marketing and advertising – the act of making something suitable for the needs of a particular person.

For this week’s blog, I’d like to spend some time discussing why personalization is important in marketing, as well as how personalization can be implemented in both traditional marketing and digital marketing.

Why personalization when we can just generalization?

When we give a gift to a friend or family member, we often think about the things the receiving end would enjoy. For me, I like receiving gifts that expand on my art supply collection, video games, and art of things I like. For others, it can be things that they care about. It can be something related to their hobbies, their career, their health, and many other aspects. We think about these things deeply before we decide on what to buy or make for the recipient. This concept is the same for businesses to consumers. Businesses want to send their products to the right customers. Relevance is the key. The probability of an adult wanting toys made for kids is not as high unless they are parents, because then they may be looking to give their children a present. The probability of an artist looking for art supplies and drawing tablets is much higher than a person who doesn’t ever do art.

As marketers, we want to show our customers that we do know and care about what they care about. We are here to bridge that gap and build a connection.

The first step to personalization is to learn about your customers.

With the sheer population size across the globe that has access to the Internet, personalization has never been made easier thanks to cookies and large data sets so readily available.

The one thing that makes collecting data more difficult these days is consumers’ ability to opt out of such data collection to protect their privacy. There is also a rise of options for partial data collection where only “necessary” data is collected. Personally, at some point, I also opted out of such programs, but I have since recently opted in for partial collections. From a consumer’s standpoint, it is completely understandable that people do not want companies to collect all their information, from their biodata to what they look up on search engines and the messages they send to others on social media platforms. It is normal for people to feel uncomfortable having their entire profile publicly available for companies to take advantage of and push personalized content and promotions into their social media feeds.

Cookies, whilst being extremely efficient and effective at data collection, marketers should always look at other sources for data collection. Let’s use one of my favorite examples – video games.

Video game developers can source their data from online reviews, forums, and social media all the time. They can find out what their players want in the future and what they are dissatisfied about. Let’s take the example of the game The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood. The common consensus from the players by skimming through the reviews is that they wish the behemoth in the game is romanceable. Unfortunately, to make that happen in the game itself may pose challenges due to plot reasons, but the game developers showed that they do know what their players want in their recent online event celebrating Valentine’s Day. The developers launched a contest inviting players to create cards for a chance to win a real-life prize related to the popular behemoth character in the game. The prize itself started a lot of conversation and surprise from the players. From a marketing standpoint, it can be considered a successful campaign of bringing word-of-mouth promotion on top of engagement from the community.

With the example above, we have successfully covered personalized digital marketing. What about traditional marketing?

Before we go into this topic, I must say that personalized traditional marketing is undoubtedly a costly investment, and may not always yield the positive result we predict it would be able to. However, think about it like this:

Patagonia creates a unique pamphlet that is playful in design and attracts the younger generation when the pamphlet arrives at their mailboxes. The chance of the receiver tossing the pamphlet immediately into the garbage bin is going to be much lower because they are more likely to flip it open and see what it does. Then, there comes the exposure of information to these young adults who can purchase clothes for themselves. It is more likely for them to remember the brand. It is more likely for them to talk about receiving such an interesting handout with their peers.

Traditional marketing with a touch of personalization is going to take creativity, time, and money. The stronger the impression we get to forge with our audience, the better the results will be. With information always bombing people thanks to rapid technology development and its ever-increasing daily usage, traditional marketing as a whole needs to step up its game to make an impact.

At the end of the day, IMC is not just about advertising goods and services. As marketers, our goal should not end at boosting sales but also creating a buzz amongst our potential and existing customers. Personalized marketing can be extremely powerful at sparking conversations and bringing in fresh impressions to the brand when it is done right. It doesn’t always have to be a publicity stunt or a heated and controversial topic. As long as marketers show effort that they genuinely understand the needs and wants of their customers, personalized marketing is one of the key elements to successful IMC campaigns.

Next week at Nat 20 Marketing, we will cover reputation management. Stay tuned and happy marketing!

[reasoningdaily]

The Guardian: ‘We are all mixed’: Henry Louis Gates Jr on race, being arrested and working towards America’s redemption

The first time I met Henry Louis Gates Jr raised more questions than it answered. It was the year 2000, I was still a teenager, and he – already a distinguished Harvard professor – was hosting a launch for his new BBC and PBS series Wonders of the African World.

I remember the occasion as a series of firsts – my first TV launch party, first documentary series I’d seen on African civilisations, first encounter with a real-life Harvard professor. I remember wondering whether the circumstances were normal. The venue was the British Museum, an institution that harbours a practically unprecedented quantity of colonial plunder. Was it, I wondered, a deliberately ironic choice? Were all Harvard professors as friendly and personable as Gates, whom everyone calls “Skip”, and was charmingly informal and kind? And perhaps most pressingly, was it normal for Harvard professor TV presenters to dress as Gates so memorably had, in shorts, socks, and a ranger’s hat?

Gates, whom I am meeting again for the first time since that day 24 years ago, remembers it for entirely different reasons. “I got in a lot of trouble for that show,” he says, cheerfully. “I was the first black film-maker to talk about African involvement in the slave trade.” And, he adds, with undeniable pride: “It was the first internet controversy involving black folks!”

The documentary, which followed Gates as he examined ancient civilisations from Axum to Nubia and Great Zimbabwe to Timbuktu, was indeed controversial. Alongside the African cultures he visited, he demonstrated great interest in African complicity in the transatlantic slave trade, an interest that managed to alienate almost everyone who was black.

African scholars complained that Gates revealed an approach to African culture through a western-centric, American lens. African-American scholars claimed his emphasis on black involvement “got the white man off the hook for the Atlantic slave trade”.

I’m speaking to Gates over Zoom. I’m in uncharacteristically rainy Los Angeles, he’s in sunny Miami. As we speak, he turns his laptop screen around, attempting to goad me – successfully – into jealousy at the sight of blue sky and serene ocean from his seaside condo. He is in Florida for a family wedding, and our call is periodically interrupted by good-natured family members coming in and out, as people mill around preparing for the big day. Family is important to Gates. His new book, The Black Box: Writing the Race, opens with the story of his grandchild Ellie, who inspired the book’s title.

Born recently to Gates’s daughter, who is mixed race, and his son-in-law, who is white, Ellie “will test about 87.5% European when she spits in the test tube,” Gates writes, adding that she “looks like an adorable little white girl”. And yet when Ellie was born, Gates’s priority, he reveals, was to make sure her parents registered her as a black child, ticking the “black” box on the form stating her race at birth. “And because of that arbitrary practice, a brilliant, beautiful little white-presenting female will be destined, throughout her life, to face the challenge of ‘proving’ that she is ‘black’,” Gates writes.

Any discomfort flowing from this – both Gates’s decision and his perception of it – is deliberately intended as a commentary on the discomfort of race itself. How can race not be contradictory, Gates suggests, when it was constructed in service of racism, and yet has been alchemised into a cultural identity celebrated by those most oppressed by it?

The Black Box applies this analysis to the lives of famous African Americans. The poet Phillis Wheatly, an enslaved young woman who was required to “prove” to white observers that she was capable of writing the poetry she so eloquently composed. The abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who constructed parental relationships – the reality being that he knew little of either his mother or father – to refute ideas, prevalent at the time, that if a black person was intellectual, that was because of white parentage. The history of what black Americans have both been called and called themselves, encompassing a fascinating and ongoing debate about the usage of “negro”, “coloured”, “African American”, and “black”.

That work began far away from Harvard, in a working-class black family in the hills of West Virginia. Gates’s father had two jobs, one at a paper mill and another as a janitor, and his mother was a home-keeper, and later a cleaner for a white family. After attending the local public school, Gates obtained an undergraduate place at Yale in 1969.

Although proudly black, the family vaguely knew it had white ancestry, particularly through Gates’s paternal grandfather. “My grandfather looked so white, we called him Casper, after Casper the Friendly Ghost,” Gates laughs. “I mean his skin was translucent!” Gates had thought one ancestor – his paternal great, great-grandfather – had been white. But when he tested his DNA, he discovered a different picture.

“Imagine my surprise when I received my first DNA results, and I’m 49% white!” he exclaims. “What that means is that half of my ancestors on my family tree for the last 500 years were white, and the other half were black, and that was an amazing lesson to me. So, what does that mean about identity? It means that I was socially constructed as a negro American when I was born in 1950. But my heritage, genetically, is enormously complicated.”

This discovery set Gates on a path that has become perhaps the dominant part of his legacy, as the host of a popular PBS show Finding Your Roots, in which he leads other prominent Americans of all racial backgrounds – figures including Oprah, Julia Roberts, Kerry Washington and Quincy Jones – on a similar journey, through DNA testing and genealogy, in which they trace their family tree.

“I have never tested an African American who didn’t have white ancestry,” Gates says. “And that’s quite remarkable to me.”

“Paradoxically these DNA tests deconstruct the racial essentialism we’ve inherited from the Enlightenment, because they show that we are all mixed,” he continues. “It’s a mode of calling those categories into question, showing scientifically that they were fictions, and freeing us from the discourse that sought to imprison us in the black box, the white box, the Native American box.”

The tightrope Gates walks lies in rejecting blackness as a racial category, while embracing it as a cultural tradition. His most recent PBS documentary series, Gospel, which relays the origin story of gospel music, is perhaps my favourite work of his, celebrating both the heartbreaking beauty of black spiritual tradition in America, and its seismic impact on global culture.

When I share my emotion at the series, Gates is unable to resist subverting the theme. He bursts into a rendition of Can the Circle Be Unbroken?, a 1930s country number by the white gospel group the Carter Family.

“[On a cold and] cloudy day/ when I saw the hearse come rollin’/ for to carry my mother away/ Will that circle be unbroken/ By and by, Lord, by and by,” he sings, in a surprisingly rich tenor.“White people wrote that song, black people love that song!” he exclaims.

The current climate, in which political tribes are more polarised than ever, has only deepened his resolve to push back against the idea that black people should all agree. In this, he sometimes comes across as a man from another age – a more charming one, real or imagined – in which everyone could sit down together and work it all out.

“I grew up in a working-class town. People are goodhearted. They want what everybody else wants: to make enough money to live comfortably, to send their kids to college, to be able to go on vacation, to have leisure time, to have some joy in their life and not just be punished by drudgery, not have economic anxiety,” he says.

Gates’s stance on reparations is a case in point. The murder of George Floyd in 2020, and the current threat to black history studies from rightwing Republicans – some of Gates’s own work has been banned from schools in Florida under Governor Ron DeSantis – have only accelerated calls for restorative justice for enslavement.

Gates acknowledges the wrongs but disagrees with the solution. “Affirmative action plans go a long way… I think that’s a form of reparation,” he says. “But I just could not imagine any group of Americans deciding to dip into their pockets and pay a cash settlement for all that our enslaved ancestors suffered. I don’t think that’s realistic.”

When I disagree – citing examples of other societies that have paid reparations, Gates is firm. He even describes calls for reparations as “racial bullying”. “The bottom line is, you can’t bully people with calls for reparations because of the legacy of slavery,” he insists. “So we need leaders who are thoughtful and nuanced and sensitive. I should know. I’ve been in America for 73 years.”

Gates’s optimistic view of American decency was famously pushed to breaking point in 2009, when he – already a famous professor and TV personality – achieved unwelcome notoriety. Returning home from filming in China, he was struggling with the lock on his door, as he entered his own property. A call from a neighbour – who reported a suspicious black male attempting to enter a house – led to the arrival of police. Gates was initially suspected of breaking into his own home. When it was established that he lived at the property, he was arrested anyway for disorderly conduct. Widespread coverage – which made international news – pictured an angry Gates, handcuffed, being led away from his own front porch.

Gates was released after Harvard sent its lawyers over. Further controversy ensued when President Barack Obama commented on the debacle, calling the police’s decision to arrest Gates “stupid”. The entire affair was resolved in a meeting at the White House in which Gates sat down for a beer with the officer who arrested him, the president, and vice-president Joe Biden.

The “beer summit”, as it became known, sparked wider conversations about racial discrimination in policing. Gates took a conciliatory line. “My heart went out to the officer when he told me he was just scared,” Gates says. “He had just wanted to go home that night to his wife. We shook hands and he gave me the handcuffs he had used to arrest me. And they’re now in an exhibit in the Smithsonian,” he adds, with a weary air of triumphalism.

Beers with a well-intentioned black president and messages of racial conciliation seem a lifetime away in the current political climate. Yet Gates says his own teaching practice remains unthreatened by fears of censorship or backlash. “Fortunately, I have the freedom to teach, whatever way that I want and whatever content that I want,” he says.

Gates has been protected, perhaps, by his refusal to conform to the norms of either academic or celebrity life. He is one of the few people to have achieved fame as an academic, thanks to his long TV career. He credits that not to American broadcasters, but to his time in Britain, early on in his career. “My time in the UK was fundamental,” he says.

“One time we went to this Indian restaurant in Cambridge,” Gates recounts. “And Soyinka brings his own chilli. I mean, this Nigerian chilli he would make and carry with him – it was engine oil! And they said to me: we are from your future. We brought you here to tell you you’re not going to be a doctor. You are meant to be a professor. You’re going to be a scholar of African and African-American studies, and you’re going to make a difference.”

The prophetic nature of those remarks must have become obvious when Gates’s first book, The Signifying Monkey, was published in 1988, applying post-structuralist analysis to African-American vernacular and literary traditions. Since then, Gates has made a name for himself as a leading voice of African-American literary and cultural history. Yet it is his TV career that put him on a steady path to becoming an American national treasure. It was the British producer Jane Root, Gates tells me, who recruited him to present an episode of the long-running BBC series Great Railway Journeys in 1996, travelling with his two daughters through southern Africa.

“The whole conceit was this professor of African-American studies taking his mixed-race daughters to Africa to find their roots, only for them to say: ‘Our roots are in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I’ve got nothing left in Africa, I want a Big Mac,’” Gates laughs. “The Guardian called it National Lampoon Goes to Africa, and that was just so honest and fresh. I would be giving my daughters this pompous lectures about Livingstone and, you know, they’d be rolling their eyes. And it was great.”

The success of that episode led to Gates hosting an entire series, Wonders of the African World, the show where I first met him all those years ago. “My whole life as a film-maker, I owe it to Jane Root, and to the BBC,” he says.

The concept so central to Wonders,of the descendants of the enslaved reconnecting with Africa, is as old as the enslavement that displaced them. Yet its modern iteration has exploded in recent years. Ghana, the west African nation that has long positioned itself as a hub for the “return”, now regularly records hundreds of thousands of additional visitors from the black diaspora, with festivals celebrating global blackness and ancestral connection. “I love it!” Gates says, of this growing phenomenon. “I think all African Americans should do two things. Take a DNA test to see where in Africa they’re from. And I think they should visit the continent.”

The return is a joyful movement in which black people seek to heal the bonds severed by enslavement and globalisation. Yet if underneath it lies a pessimism – that racism makes western nations unliveable – it is not one that Gates shares.

He acknowledges that America is broken. “I remember under John Kennedy and certainly with Bobby Kennedy, and with Martin Luther King, we thought poverty was a disease that could be cured. No one thinks that today,” he laments. But rather than offering a way out, he believes in the country’s redemption, and hopes he and his work will play a role. “We have to fix it,” he says. “And we have to fix it together.”

In typical contrary fashion, Gates turns to histories rooted in the darkest side of America’s racial capitalism to find inspiration for believing in America’s potential. At the turn of the 20th century, when black women faced racist characterisation as “thieves and prostitutes”, they retaliated by forming “coloured women’s clubs”, to improve their image, foster racial pride, and advocate civil rights.

“I think of that movement,” Gates says. “Their motto was ‘lifting as we climb’. And I think that should be the motto of American capitalism. We lift, as we climb.”

The Black Box: Writing the Race by Henry Louis Gates Jris published by Penguin (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

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[WEEK 7] Filtered Reality: Is Social Media Making Us Want Cosmetic Surgery?

We've all seen them: the flawless faces and sculpted physiques that dominate our social media feeds. But what if the constant barrage of airbrushed perfection is messing with our perception of beauty and fueling a desire for cosmetic surgery?

Turns out, there's more to the story than just envy. A study in the Journal of Current Psychology (Walker et al. 2019) found that young women exposed to images of cosmetic surgery procedures were more likely to want them themselves, especially if they spent a lot of time on social media.  This isn't just a "girls only" issue either. Another study published in Body Image (Matera, Nerini & Stefanile 2018) found that men are also influenced by social media, with factors like teasing about muscularity and social comparison with peers impacting their interest in cosmetic procedures.

But how exactly is social media playing this tricky role? Here's the lowdown:

Social media platforms use algorithms to curate your feed, showing you content they think you'll like. If you engage with posts featuring "ideal" body types, the algorithm keeps feeding you more of the same, creating an echo chamber of unrealistic beauty standards. This constant exposure can distort your perception of what's "normal" and lead to feelings of inadequacy.

In response to the often unrealistic beauty standards perpetuated by mainstream media, the internet is buzzing with the #BodyPositive movement. These movements aim to promote self-acceptance, body diversity, and inclusivity by celebrating bodies of all shapes, sizes, and appearances. They are celebrated and widely spread on social media platforms, of course, but wait, hold on a sec... is social media secretly working against them? The movements often face challenges related to platform governance and content moderation. These challenges include censorship or shadow-banning of body-positive content that features diverse or marginalised bodies  – think curves, rolls, or anything that doesn't fit the airbrushed ideal. For example, TikTok's algorithm may automatically flag content as "nudity" based on the skin-to-clothing ratio in an image or video, disproportionately affecting individuals with larger bodies who may naturally show more skin (unfair, right?).

Sabrina, for instance, said that she had learned about a “bot that measures the skin-to-clothing ratio of a photo. [This] means the larger of a body you have, the more skin you are showing inherently.”

The problem? This invisibility act can mess with our self-esteem, especially for people with larger bodies who already feel excluded from beauty standards. When individuals see that their bodies are less visible or celebrated on social media platforms due to algorithmic biases, they may feel pressured to conform to societal beauty standards or pursue cosmetic procedures to gain visibility and acceptance. 

Research studies have shown a correlation between exposure to idealized body images on social media and an increase in cosmetic surgery procedures. According to the 2022 report by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, there has been a 19% rise in surgical procedures since 2019. Researchers have noted that as a result of social media photo and video sharing, there has been an upsurge in demand for surgery, implying that body dissatisfaction relates to comparison among images young people view online may impact their decision to seek cosmetic procedures (Walker et al. 2019, p. 3356).

So, what can we do to break free from the filtered reality of social media? Here are some tips:

Curate Your Feed: Be mindful of who you follow. Unfollow accounts that make you feel bad about yourself and actively seek out content that celebrates body positivity and diversity.

Focus on Health: Shift your focus from aesthetics to overall well-being. Engage with content that promotes healthy habits and a positive relationship with your body.

Embrace Imperfection: Challenge unrealistic beauty standards by following accounts that showcase real bodies in all shapes and sizes. Remember, beauty comes in all forms!

Think Critically: Don't believe everything you see online! Be aware of photo editing and the curated nature of social media presentations.

The Role of Platforms:  Social media platforms also have a responsibility to play. They can:

Promote Transparency: Platforms need to be more transparent about how algorithms work and give users tools to control their feeds.

Prioritize Diversity: Algorithms should be designed to feature a wider range of body types and ethnicities, challenging unrealistic beauty standards.

Enable Content Flagging: Users should be able to flag content that promotes unhealthy body image ideals or unrealistic beauty standards.

As we navigate the treacherous waters of filtered reality, let us remember – beauty is not confined to the confines of a screen. True beauty transcends pixels and filters, encompassing the depth and richness of the human experience. So, the next time you find yourself lost in the digital labyrinth of perfection, pause, and remember – you are more than just a filtered image, you are beautifully, authentically you. 🌟

REFERENCES

American Society of Plastic Surgeons 2023, The American Society of Plastic Surgeons ® Procedural Statistics Data Insights Partners: 2022 ASPS Procedural Statistics Release, viewed <https://www.plasticsurgery.org/documents/News/Statistics/2022/plastic-surgery-statistics-report-2022.pdf>.

Duffy, BE & Meisner, C 2022, ‘Platform governance at the margins: Social media creators’ experiences with algorithmic (in)visibility’, Media, Culture & Society, vol. 45, no. 2, p. 016344372211119.

Kato, B 2020, ‘Curvy influencers say TikTok banned their body-centric videos’, New York Post, viewed <https://nypost.com/2020/07/29/curvy-influencers-say-tiktok-banned-their-body-centric-videos/>.

Matera, C, Nerini, A & Stefanile, C 2018, ‘Why are men interested in cosmetic surgery procedures? Examining the role of different forms of peer influence, social comparison, internalization, and body dissatisfaction’, Body Image, vol. 26, pp. 74–77, viewed <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1740144517305107?via%3Dihub>.

Walker, CE, Krumhuber, EG, Dayan, S & Furnham, A 2019, ‘Effects of Social Media Use on Desire for Cosmetic Surgery among Young Women’, Current Psychology, vol. 40, no. 7, pp. 3355–3364, viewed <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-019-00282-1#citeas>.