#so i can easily find & follow them on all social medias available!!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

UK publishers suing Google for $17.4b over rigged ad markets

THIS WEEKEND (June 7–9), I'm in AMHERST, NEW YORK to keynote the 25th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention and accept the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

Look, no one wants to kick Big Tech to the curb more than I do, but, also: it's good that Google indexes the news so people can find it, and it's good that Facebook provides forums where people can talk about the news.

It's not news if you can't find it. It's not news if you can't talk about it. We don't call information you can't find or discuss "news" – we call it "secrets."

And yet, the most popular – and widely deployed – anti-Big Tech tactic promulgated by the news industry and supported by many of my fellow trustbusters is premised on making Big Tech pay to index the news and/or provide a forum to discuss news articles. These "news bargaining codes" (or, less charitably, "link taxes") have been mooted or introduced in the EU, France, Spain, Australia, and Canada. There are proposals to introduce these in the US (through the JCPA) and in California (the CJPA).

These US bills are probably dead on arrival, for reasons that can be easily understood by the Canadian experience with them. After Canada introduced Bill C-18 – its own news bargaining code – Meta did exactly what it had done in many other places where this had been tried: blocked all news from Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and other Meta properties.

This has been a disaster for the news industry and a disaster for Canadians' ability to discuss the news. Oh, it makes Meta look like assholes, too, but Meta is the poster child for "too big to care" and is palpably indifferent to the PR costs of this boycott.

Frustrated lawmakers are now trying to figure out what to do next. The most common proposal is to order Meta to carry the news. Canadians should be worried about this, because the next government will almost certainly be helmed by the far-right conspiratorialist culture warrior Pierre Poilievre, who will doubtless use this power to order Facebook to platform "news sites" to give prominence to Canada's rotten bushel of crypto-fascist (and openly fascist) "news" sites.

Americans should worry about this too. A Donald Trump 2028 presidency combined with a must-carry rule for news would see Trump's cabinet appointees deciding what is (and is not) news, and ordering large social media platforms to cram the Daily Caller (or, you know, the Daily Stormer) into our eyeballs.

But there's another, more fundamental reason that must-carry is incompatible with the American system: the First Amendment. The government simply can't issue a blanket legal order to platforms requiring them to carry certain speech. They can strongly encourage it. A court can order limited compelled speech (say, a retraction following a finding of libel). Under emergency conditions, the government might be able to compel the transmission of urgent messages. But there's just no way the First Amendment can be squared with a blanket, ongoing order issued by the government to communications platforms requiring them to reproduce, and make available, everything published by some collection of their favorite news outlets.

This might also be illegal in Canada, but it's harder to be definitive. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enshrined in 1982, and Canada's Supreme Court is still figuring out what it means. Section Two of the Charter enshrines a free expression right, but it's worded in less absolute terms than the First Amendment, and that's deliberate. During the debate over the wording of the Charter, Canadian scholars and policymakers specifically invoked problems with First Amendment absolutism and tried to chart a middle course between strong protections for free expression and problems with the First Amendment's brook-no-exceptions language.

So maybe Canada's Supreme Court would find a must-carry order to Meta to be a violation of the Charter, but it's hard to say for sure. The Charter is both young and ambiguous, so it's harder to be definitive about what it would say about this hypothetical. But when it comes to the US and the First Amendment, that's categorically untrue. The US Constitution is centuries older than the Canadian Charter, and the First Amendment is extremely definitive, and there are reams of precedent interpreting it. The JPCA and CJPA are totally incompatible with the US Constitution. Passing them isn't as silly as passing a law declaring that Pi equals three or that water isn't wet, but it's in the neighborhood.

But all that isn't to say that the news industry shouldn't be attacking Big Tech. Far from it. Big Tech compulsively steals from the news!

But what Big Tech steals from the news isn't content.

It's money.

Big Tech steals money from the news. Take social media: when a news outlet invests in building a subscriber base on a social media platform, they're giving that platform a stick to beat them with. The more subscribers you have on social media, the more you'll be willing to pay to reach those subscribers, and the more incentive there is for the platform to suppress the reach of your articles unless you pay to "boost" your content.

This is plainly fraudulent. When I sign up to follow a news outlet on a social media site, I'm telling the platform to show me the things the news outlet publishes. When the platform uses that subscription as the basis for a blackmail plot, holding my desire to read the news to ransom, they are breaking their implied promise to me to show me the things I asked to see:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-need-end-end-web

This is stealing money from the news. It's the definition of an "unfair method of competition." Article 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act gives the FTC the power to step in and ban this practice, and they should:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

Big Tech also steals money from the news via the App Tax: the 30% rake that the mobile OS duopoly (Apple/Google) requires for every in-app purchase (Apple/Google also have policies that punish app vendors who take you to the web to make payments without paying the App Tax). 30% out of every subscriber dollar sent via an app is highway robbery! By contrast, the hyperconcentrated, price-gouging payment processing cartel charges 2-5% – about a tenth of the Big Tech tax. This is Big Tech stealing money from the news:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/06/save-news-we-must-open-app-stores

Finally, Big Tech steals money by monopolizing the ad market. The Google-Meta ad duopoly takes 51% out of every ad-dollar spent. The historic share going to advertising "intermediaries" is 10-15%. In other words, Google/Meta cornered the market on ads and then tripled the bite they were taking out of publishers' advertising revenue. They even have an illegal, collusive arrangement to rig this market, codenamed "Jedi Blue":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

There's two ways to unrig the ad market, and we should do both of them.

First, we should trustbust both Google and Meta and force them to sell off parts of their advertising businesses. Currently, both Google and Meta operate a "full stack" of ad services. They have an arm that represents advertisers buying space for ads. Another arm represents publishers selling space to advertisers. A third arm operates the marketplace where these sales take place. All three arms collect fees. On top of that: Google/Meta are both publishers and advertisers, competing with their own customers!

This is as if you were in court for a divorce and you discovered that the same lawyer representing your soon-to-be ex was also representing you…while serving as the judge…and trying to match with you both on Tinder. It shouldn't surprise you if at the end of that divorce, the court ruled that the family home should go to the lawyer.

So yeah, we should break up ad-tech:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-shatter-ad-tech

Also: we should ban surveillance advertising. Surveillance advertising gives ad-tech companies a permanent advantage over publishers. Ad-tech will always know more about readers' behavior than publishers do, because Big Tech engages in continuous, highly invasive surveillance of every internet user in the world. Surveillance ads perform a little better than "content-based ads" (ads sold based on the content of a web-page, not the behavior of the person looking at the page), but publishers will always know more about their content than ad-tech does. That means that even if content-based ads command a slightly lower price than surveillance ads, a much larger share of that payment will go to publishers:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

Banning surveillance advertising isn't just good business, it's good politics. The potential coalition for banning surveillance ads is everyone who is harmed by commercial surveillance. That's a coalition that's orders of magnitude larger than the pool of people who merely care about fairness in the ad/news industries. It's everyone who's worried about their grandparents being brainwashed on Facebook, or their teens becoming anorexic because of Instagram. It includes people angry about deepfake porn, and people angry about Black Lives Matter protesters' identities being handed to the cops by Google (see also: Jan 6 insurrectionists).

It also includes everyone who discovers that they're paying higher prices because a vendor is using surveillance data to determine how much they'll pay – like when McDonald's raises the price of your "meal deal" on your payday, based on the assumption that you will spend more when your bank account is at its highest monthly level:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

Attacking Big Tech for stealing money is much smarter than pretending that the problem is Big Tech stealing content. We want Big Tech to make the news easy to find and discuss. We just want them to stop pocketing 30 cents out of every subscriber dollar and 51 cents out of ever ad dollar, and ransoming subscribers' social media subscriptions to extort publishers.

And there's amazing news on this front: a consortium of UK web-publishers called Ad Tech Collective Action has just triumphed in a high-stakes proceeding, and can now go ahead with a suit against Google, seeking damages of GBP13.6b ($17.4b) for the rigged ad-tech market:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/17-bln-uk-adtech-lawsuit-against-google-can-go-ahead-tribunal-rules-2024-06-05/

The ruling, from the Competition Appeal Tribunal, paves the way for a frontal assault on the thing Big Tech actually steals from publishers: money, not content.

This is exactly what publishing should be doing. Targeting the method by which tech steals from the news is a benefit to all kinds of news organizations, including the independent, journalist-owned publishers that are doing the best news work today. These independents do not have the same interests as corporate news, which is dominated by hedge funds and private equity raiders, who have spent decades buying up and hollowing out news outlets, and blaming the resulting decline in readership and profits on Craiglist.

You can read more about Big Finance's raid on the news in Margot Susca's Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy:

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p087561

You can also watch/listen to Adam Conover's excellent interview with Susca:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N21YfWy0-bA

Frankly, the looters and billionaires who bought and gutted our great papers are no more interested in the health of the news industry or democracy than Big Tech is. We should care about the news and the workers who produce the news, not the profits of the hedge-funds that own the news. An assault on Big Tech's monetary theft levels the playing field, making it easier for news workers and indies to compete directly with financialized news outlets and billionaire playthings, by letting indies keep more of every ad-dollar and more of every subscriber-dollar – and to reach their subscribers without paying ransom to social media.

Ending monetary theft – rather than licensing news search and discussion – is something that workers are far more interested in than their bosses. Any time you see workers and their bosses on the same side as a fight against Big Tech, you should look more closely. Bosses are not on their workers' side. If bosses get more money out of Big Tech, they will not share those gains with workers unless someone forces them to.

That's where antitrust comes in. Antitrust is designed to strike at power, and enforcers have broad authority to blunt the power of corporate juggernauts. Remember Article 5 of the FTC Act, the one that lets the FTC block "unfair methods of competition?" FTC Chair Lina Khan has proposed using it to regulate training AI, specifically to craft rules that address the labor and privacy issues with AI:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mh8Z5pcJpg

This is an approach that can put creative workers where they belong, in a coalition with other workers, rather than with their bosses. The copyright approach to curbing AI training is beloved of the same media companies that are eagerly screwing their workers. If we manage to make copyright – a transferrable right that a worker can be forced to turn over their employer – into the system that regulates AI training, it won't stop training. It'll just trigger every entertainment company changing their boilerplate contract so that creative workers have to sign over their AI rights or be shown the door:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/13/spooky-action-at-a-close-up/#invisible-hand

Then those same entertainment and news companies will train AI models and try to fire most of their workers and slash the pay of the remainder using those models' output. Using copyright to regulate AI training makes changes to who gets to benefit from workers' misery, shifting some of our stolen wages from AI companies to entertainment companies. But it won't stop them from ruining our lives.

By contrast, focusing on actual labor rights – say, through an FTCA 5 rulemaking – has the potential to protect those rights from all parties, and puts us on the same side as call-center workers, train drivers, radiologists and anyone else whose wages are being targeted by AI companies and their customers.

Policy fights are a recurring monkey's paw nightmare in which we try to do something to fight corruption and bullying, only to be outmaneuvered by corrupt bullies. Making good policy is no guarantee of a good outcome, but it sure helps – and good policy starts with targeting the thing you want to fix. If we're worried that news is being financially starved by Big Tech, then we should go after the money, not the links.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/06/stealing-money-not-content/#content-free

[callsignmarz]

MDNI | 18+ : Keegan x Reader | Fem

TW- sexual content, degradation & humiliation.

“Social Media.”

"Take it down...now."

Keegan goes to snatch the phone from your hand but some how you were quick enough to dodge him.

He saw the picture on your story.

Not on your wall, where you strategically uploaded pictures of fond memories and alluring selfies, decorating yourself to be some eccentric individual.

No, it had to be your story. Which was meant to post for temporary reasons.

All damn day, you've waited for Keegan to get home from work, excited to unwind the night away with your boyfriend.

Only to get turned down because he wanted to play his fucking video games.

So, in retaliation...

You posted a mirror selfie, posing to draw attention to your curves in nothing but a thin grey sweater and simple black panties. Of course, to make it more classy, you add a black and white filter.

"Don't make me repeat myself, y/n." He warned you with another attempt to grab your phone, but to no avail.

"I'm not taking it down." You scoffed at him, finding amusement in pestering him, "A thirst trap never hurt no body. Besides, not like you're giving much attention today."

"Are you fucking with me right now? Your 'little followers' don't need to be thinking you're single..." there was a dangerous edge to his words as he spoke. It took every ounce in him to not flip out on you.

It was nauseating to him how much your life revolves around your Instagram.

Each moment had to be shared, every comment enlivened you and the likes that flooded your notifications gave you fulfillment.

You practically were a whore for attention.

The two of you continued the power-play battle for your phone with Keegan's sculpted chest bumping you back until you were pinned against a wall.

With a spontaneous reaction, you shoved your phone right into your panties. Keegan's eyes met yours, fully aware what you were doing. You were provoking him in the right ways, even if it did piss him off.

"Do you think that's supposed to stop me?" He let out a unwarranted chuckle."You're playing with fire, princess."

Before you could respond, his fingers slipped beneath the waistband of your panties, grazing teasingly close to your clit. Your breath hitches with anticipation, as you allowed the phone to be retrieved from it's hiding place.

Unlocking the phone, he scrolled around until he had reached your post. His thumb hovered over your sultry picture.

Before pressing the delete button, Keegan had sent the picture to his phone.

And instead of giving you back your phone, he holds onto it. "Are you happy now?" You say as if bored.

"Very but, I'll admit it...you looked damn good in that picture." Keegan said with a smugness in his tone as his eyes now raked over your body. "But let's be crystal fucking clear about one thing..."

His hand crept up and lightly trailed your throat, sending electrical jolts of pleasure throughout your body. He could see a flicker of impish desire in your eyes, expediting his own arousal.

Keegan leaned in, his lips hovered over your ear and with a husked voice he whispered,

"Don't think you're getting out of this. When I tell you something, babygirl...I expect you to listen."

You can feel the cool surface of the wall behind you, heightening your senses and making you acutely aware of the close proximity. A wicked smirk tugged at the corner of his lips as his hands dropped to his pants, easily maneuvering to undo them.

"Get on your knees." He commanded and your body follows. Your obedience fueled his dominant nature. Keegan's hand fishes out his needy cock, unveiling himself before you.

You could feel your mouth watering at the sight of his dick, ready to take him into your mouth. He saw the hunger gaze of yours, and he tilted his head slightly to the side, looking down on you with his own avid fascination.

As he guides his cock to your waiting mouth, his finger comb into your hair then finding a firm grasp as he descends down your throat. The taste of him on your tongue was a delicacy.

Keegan let out a low, throaty groan as he lost himself within the depths of your mouth. "That's it, baby...fuck..." he rasped, before pulling out your phone. The flash of the phone illuminated your face, capturing your attention.

He was recording...

You try to pull back, but the vice grip Keegan had on your hair, anchored you in place as his hips bucked into your mouth.

"Not so fast, babygirl. Mmm.. you're going to show everyone who you belong to. So, take this dick like a good little slut." Keegan's voice was laced with mischief and seduction.

With that, his thrusts quickened and moved with power, the sounds of your gagging mixed with his moans echoed of the walls.

Keegan watched you through the phone, making sure to get the best angles. You were putting on a performance of a lifetime as your lips and tongue worked their magic.

Within a matter of seconds, you were a mess. The sight of your disheveled state, inched him closer to reach his climax.

"Fuck, y/n... I'm about to come...argh."

He yanked your hair back, pulling himself from your mouth, leaving you gasping. His cock glistening with your saliva and your chin coaxed in his fluids. His hand continued to stroke his throbbing shaft, the tip of his dick turning bright red.

"Here it comes baby...mm.. fuck, f-fuck...yes, god y/n..argh!~" Keegan growled through his teeth.

You patiently waited, eager for him to consumed by his tantalizing orgasm. It wasn't long until ropes of milky white cum, shot out onto your face as if he was painting a canvas.

His groans of ecstasy sounded like a symphony to your ears. As he slowly caught his breath and stopped recording. His attention fully into the video, making sure it met his standards. Then with a press of a button, Keegan uploaded the video to your story.

"I'm sure you'll have fun with the comment section later." He laughs as he pulled you up onto your feet, handing the phone back to you.

"Now let's get you cleaned up."

[melodylsimpson]

Melanin in YA

Imagine a space where you can easily find the next YA book written by a Black author to add to your TBR list. Best of all, amongst that book are an endless amount of other YA books waiting to be discovered by you, all written by Black authors. In that same space, you can find out if any of these authors have a book event near you or will be attending a festival / convention near you. In that same space, you can find out their NYT bestseller stats, book to screen adaptation details, a list of Black audiobook narrators to listen to, a detailed list of Black literary agents to query, Black bookish social media influencers to follow, Black led bookish podcasts to subscribe to, Black owned bookstores to visit and so much more. 

That space is Melanin in Y.A. A database for all things Black in traditional young adult publishing. It acts as a no excuses cross-referencing tool for industry professionals, press, readers, writers, students, educators, librarians, program administrators and more. It’s available to you 24/7 for free.

I, Melody Simpson, created Melanin in YA in August 2020 and have been running it entirely by myself from day one. I really want to hire an intern to help me out because maintaining and promoting this is a lot but I’m tapped out on funds and cannot afford an intern right now. Though I am in desperate need of one and would never ask anyone to do the amount of work that I need done without paying them. If you’d like to help in that regard, you can do so here (gofundme) and no donation is too small, thank you so much. If you’d like to help out in other ways, can you please do any of the following below to help amplify this invaluable resource? 

1) Follow and/or repost/retweet Melanin in YA content on Instagram or Twitter

2) Shop merch at Shop Melanin in YA

3) Send the melanininya.com link to your English teachers / professors, librarians, favorite booksellers, colleagues, fellow book club members, anyone you know who loves books, anyone you know who values diversity, equity and inclusion, and everyone you think could use this resource.

Full transparency, when Melanin in YA first launched, there was lots of excitement around it. But it’s been quite the struggle to get people to talk about this resource and share this resource outside of moments in time, say other than Black History Month or when something tragic doesn’t happen to Black people and makes it to mainstream news. I appreciate your support 365 days a year. Especially during a time when Black YA books are being banned more than ever before. This resource is so necessary. Your support is so necessary. It means so, so much. 

Thank you.

[thesnazzysharky]

Waffling about/reviewing Trevor Henderson's Cryptids because I think they're cool (Part 1)

Today!.. well... you can read the title can you? There will be a total of 10 cryptids included in this list. Some I will have more to say than others. I'll be reviewing these weirdos based on things like their design, additional info or lore, scare factor, and overall quality of their image(s) and I may offer some theories here and there. If the cryptid has more than one image to it, I will be stating which one is my favorite. I will most likely be making more parts to this where I review even more.

Before we get into that, I do want to establish some things. 1. This list and the following lists will not be going in any specific order. All of the cryptids chosen and their placements will be random aside from maybe the very last one. So don't view this as a ranking list.

2. A lot of Trevor's creations do not have official names. Most are either given a name by fans or they straight up don't have a name at all (or at least not one that I could find). I'll be making sure to specify on whether a name is official, was made by fans, or was made specifically by me. For example: "This creature is officially known as...", "This creature is known by the fans as...", "I personally call this creature..." You get the point. 3. When it comes to the more indepth cryptids (like Siren Head, Cartoon Cat, Long Horse, ect). I may have to talk about those in their own separate post because there's a lot more images and captions to go through and analyze. 4. Trevor has multiple different social media platforms where he has given out information about his creatures. With some of those platforms being deleted or made private in the case of his Twitter account. This makes keeping up with and trying to gain information about his creatures tedious and confusing. Some info on one platform may not be available on the other. Or it may not exist anymore due to succumbing to link rot. Misinformation about these creatures thus spreads easily. Making it not easy to tell what's official and what's essentially just headcanon. The Trevor Henderson Wiki and its unprofessional and abandoned state is a big example of this.

I'll be making sure that the info I have is as accurate as possible and comes from a primary source somewhere. Even if that source has succumbed to link rot, I at least know that it existed at one point. If possible, I'll also be providing additional screenshots if they're available so I don't sound like I'm talking out of my ass.

If I make a mistake or you think I should add something, please let me know so I can change or add it. With that, lets get started!

10. The Smile Room

"07/27/06 - Two teenagers go missing after breaking into the "Neb's Fun World" bowling in Oshawa, Ontario. A friend finds a cell phone while looking for them and turns it into the police after finding this photo. Upon investigation, "The Smile Room" is not a part of the building."

A lot of Trevor's creations look like freakish abominations or eldritch horror beings. He sometimes goes for a more simple approach though. This being officially known as The Smile Room is a pair of teeth within a door. Yet that's all it needs to be a very cool design. Seeing something like that paired with the text above the room ominously and vaguely stating "THE SMILE ROOM" is incredibly bizarre as it is disturbing. The darkened gums, apparent saliva, the crooked teeth. A huge nope right there. Somebody get this thing checked out to a dentist ASAP. The caption states that this "room" made two teens go missing and that when the police went to investigate further, the room was gone. So there's that fear of the unknown factor. What is this thing?

A later image depicts the mouth being able to pull itself out of its room with tendrils, which looks very disgusting and discomforting.

Then we get this crazy ass image that's simply captioned "smile room host".

So not only is the mouth thing able to physically move itself around, but it can also have a "host" akin to a parasite.

Trevor later went to state the following about this thing "A wormhole between our universe and the mouth of some sleeping, near-dead entity of unfathomable size, any abandoned room or space could become a "smile room". Anyone drawn in is decimated (much like a black hole), though it may make ambulatory hosts as a last resort."

So the Smile Room we're seeing is only a small portion of... whatever it is. It's a dying beast making its way into our world so it can feed out of desperation. When asked why its close to death, Trevor responded...

Entropy meaning lack of order or predictability. We don't know what type of entropy the Smile Room is going through, but my guess is that it has something to do with its home universe. Something really bad must have happened there if this beast had to resort to eating smaller beings in a whole different universe. Makes you wonder what horrors are going on in that universe.

Damn strong start here. I like the Smile Room a lot. It's a simple yet unnerving design with some perfect mystery to it. All of its artwork is banging and nice looking too.

As for my favorite illustration of it, I really like the one depicting the Smile Room Host. The design is unnerving and the red lighting in the background, as if to signify that you're in serious danger, is great. Although I have to go with the first and original one when it comes to being my favorite. It's simply perfectly and effectively ominous. Not to mention that the story behind the background itself is interesting.

The gums and teeth are fake obviously, but the text above the door is surprisingly real. The Smile Room is a real life thing that originated from a now abandoned asylum. Dating back all the way to the 1920's!

You can even find a 26 minute video exploring said abandoned asylum right here. It's a wonderful watch that manages to be both serene and unsettling (considering how unethical asylums were back then). The camera work is great, the pieces of soundtrack here and there are atmospheric, and the two dudes in the video exploring the asylum aren't annoying. When you have the time, give it a watch!

Just a very cool creature. 5/5

9. Photo-Booth Man

"For a period of roughly three months, from April to mid June of 2002, a public photo-booth at the Steltson Oaks Mall in the San Fernando Valley portion of Los Angeles only produced photos of the same man, regardless of who was using the machine. The man was always facing dead ahead, with an expressionless face. It was hard to determine what age the man was, though he appeared to be in his late teens to early 20's. By early June, photos of the man were being produced much more rapidly, and they had begun to change. Photos of the man increasingly came out warped, with staring eyes and deformed features. Eventually, the machine was decommissioned due to customer outcry, with many complaining of being so alarmed by the photos, they would dream of the man. It's current location is unknown. Existing photos of the photo-booth man are said to fetch high numbers at very specific auctions, held for people who specialize in finding such things."

One of Trevor's older creations. This one is pretty straight forward and simple, but I like it a lot. Officially known as Photo Booth Man, the images of this guy are well made, managing to strike the uncanny valley effect for me. You can tell he's supposed to be human, but something about him just feels... very wrong. I especially like this specific illustration of the man.

The idea of a photo booth popping out weird and creepy pictures of someone you don't recognize is great and it makes you question the paranormal nature going on here. Why is this photo booth producing photos of this man? Did something happen in or near the photo booth? The deformities of the man's face in the later pictures could imply that something gruesome happened to him. Leading to him looking like... that. To speak about the caption provided to the illustrations, it does a pretty good job at making them all the more chilling. Something that I find interesting and made a mental note of is that a good chunk of Trevor's earlier work were more willing to have lengthy captions or at least be more descriptive when it came to giving a bit of info about the cryptid. Trevor would later lean on the more vague and cryptic side when it came to the captions in his later illustrations. I assume because leaving things more vague makes these creatures all the more scarier. I think the more detailed caption works well here nonetheless. I like the little story it provides and the bit of mystery is pretty cool.

There's definitely more scary or interesting cryptids, but still pretty decent. 3.5/5

8. We See You

"Tape found by the side of the road in the Colorado desert in November of 2012. Footage is the same three minutes of footage on a loop, with the camera recording out the passenger side window as the driver and passenger panic. Unknown figures wave to the car. While at first the tape appears to be made of the same few minutes on repeat, and the dialogue is the same, it appears that each three-minute segment bears small differences from each other, such as the pattern of clouds in the sky and the number of figures."

Okay, this one is really disturbing and I love it. Simply because of how this feels like something straight out of surreal nightmare. These poor souls ended up in this "trap" as one of them calls it as seen in the image. Considering how the tape plays out, I assume that they were just going on a drive in the desert, before realizing everything around them felt like it was stuck in a loop.

That was when they began to panic and when the waving shadows started popping up. Something then eventually happened to them that caused them to disappear and that tape being the only thing left of them. There could be other possibilities and interpretations as to how the exact events played out though.

Nonetheless, this one is really creepy and good. Anything involving getting stuck in a repetitive loop is horrifying and this is a good example of that. The waving shadows are unnerving, the dialogue seen in the image where the driver and passenger are in fear and disbelief as to what's happening is well done, and the "WE SEE YOU" text in bright red on a billboard (hence the name I've given to this entity) brings everything all together.

You do wonder what happened to the driver and passenger. I can't imagine that they went out in a peaceful way. Either that or maybe they met a fate worse than death.

Very good 5/5

7. Mr. Bag

"mr.bag"

Officially known as Mr. Bag, this is easily one of my favorites among Trevor's cryptids and it pains me how underrated he seems to be. We're first introduced to this thing by the image seen above. Simply captioned "mr.bag". Not much info to gain for now, but this illustration is already a great introduction to him.

This dude is creepy as all fuck, especially with his pale face, closed eyes, and lack of any expression or emotion. But then it gets worse once you realize how disturbingly tall he seems to be. Further implied by the simplistic drawing behind him. More interestingly though, the second simple drawing depicts a person going towards a small house or shed. With Mr. Bag presumably being inside.

Things only get more interesting when we see the other images and the info they provide.

This image of Mr. Bag would be posted after the previous one. Depicting what is presumably a young girl that is "friends" with Mr. Bag. She seems to have drawn this artwork for her friend or maybe to show off to her parents.

We get some info that we already knew. Such as how his trash bag body is shiny and how he's so damn tall that he could easily sign up for the NBA. But then we get some disturbing new info. The "WRAPPED UP INSIDE" text with the artwork depicting a dead person inside Mr. Bag.

This explains Mr. Bag's complete lack of expression in the first image. He's dead... yet he's still alive at the same time somehow? Also curious as to how Mr. Bag is able to move at all, since the artwork clearly shows that the dead person inside the bag doesn't fully fit their "casing". Is Mr. Bag supposed to be the dead person or the bag itself? Odd but very interesting. Let's go to the next illustration.

“Hey Dad. It’s going ok. Yeah. I can tell it’ll take a lot longer to clean than I thought. I haven’t even touched the basement yet. I thought I heard an animal down there! Yeah, I know you warned me. It’s ok. It’ll give me a chance to say goodbye. Yeah. Love you too. Bye.”

The caption here implies that whoever is texting their father is moving out of their household. Perhaps it's the young girl that made the crayon drawing we saw earlier, now all grown up.

That aside, they state that they heard an animal down in the basement. And how "it" will give them a chance to say goodbye. The illustration depicts Mr. Bag in said basement who, strangely, changed a bit in appearance. Looking to be a bit taller.

A very ominous and unnerving image right here. Considering the fact that Mr. Bag was apparently making noises that could be mistaken for an animal and that the speaker's father warned them about going down in the basement with Mr. Bag; something tells me Mr. Bag isn't too happy that the "friend" they knew since childhood is planning on leaving him. And so we get to see what exactly happens when Mr. Bag is upset in the next image.

“It followed us even when we fled the house. I saw it for the first time while stopping for gas. We’re still driving. I’m afraid to stop for more than a night. It’s always close.”

Annnnd this folks is why becoming friends with a haunted corpse inside a trashbag is probably NOT a good idea. As expected, Mr. Bag didn't take the goodbye so well, and now he's straight up stalking the speaker and presumably the rest of the family that were living in the household.

What's incredibly unnerving here is that Mr. Bag got taller once again. He's gigantic now. That's because he has killed a few things at this point while chasing down the speaker. Under the original image on Twitter, a user theorized that Mr. Bag kills people by wrapping himself around them; to which Trevor responded with "Nailed it!" Not just that, but he's either insanely fast or can straight up teleport. As the speaker states that "It's always close." No matter how much they try driving away, Mr. Bag is always near. Unfortunately, I don't think the speaker nor their family were able to make it after this.

Okay. Now it's time to talk about why Mr. Bag is the coolest fucking thing Trevor has ever created. Mr. Bag is very interesting compared to some of the other cryptids for one simple reason: he has a personality. Something that you very rarely, if ever, get with Trevor's cryptids.

Mr. Bag can be befriended (as stated in Trevor's danger tier list) and assuming that the speaker in the illustrations was the same little girl who made the crayon drawing, he can be a friendly and perhaps even harmless fella for a long time, as long as you're his friend.

He's a very clingy and quick to anger bastard though the moment that you try to leave him. All the fun and memories you had with him get thrown out the window. He gets emotionally hurt. He gets angry. He gets murderous. He's pretty much that one friend or abusive ex who gets all pissy and uptight when you try to leave them. They won't accept any goodbyes. They want you to stay with them. It's a vicious and tragic cycle. One that Mr. Bag has been apart of for a very long time considering the date on this illustration.

It really makes you wonder why Mr. Bag is this way. My personal theory was that he was once a man who met a tragic fate through unknown means and thus he ended up in the bag he's in now. After possessing his own corpse essentially, he was filled with sorrow and misery, but something that did bring him some happiness was making friends.

Making friends is all he wants in his current life. Since he can't really live a normal life anymore due to the state he's in. This is why he becomes angry and murderous when his friends try to leave him. He wants eternal happiness. He wants to find the perfect friend. Perhaps when he was still human he either had no friends or had serious attachment issues. Leading to what he is now.

Whatever lead to his creation, this guy is a wonderful and perfect horror monster. The little story that is formed through the captions of his images is perfect. To this day, I think he is easily one of the most horrifying cryptids among Trevor's roster. Something about him is just so damn creepy and unnerving to me. I don't know if it has to do with his uncanny face, his insane height, the captions, or the fact that he can go from friendly to murderous on a dime. Or maybe it's all of those things.

As for my favorite illustration of Mr. Bag, I really love the one depicting him in the basement. As stated before, it looks and feels so ominous, especially with the caption alongside it. Despite Mr. Bags lack of facial expressions, something about that particular image gives off the vibes that he is not happy at all. It's awesome.

Extremely underrated. SIX out of five. 6/5

6. Pole Bugs

"They were as slow and harmless as stick bugs, but once you saw one in a neighbourhood, you could count on a whole mess of them showing up. They get up on the poles and good luck making a call. Just white noise and voices from then on."

Known by the community as Stick Bugs and referred to as Pole Bugs by me, these silly boyos are 100% harmless according to the danger tier list.

One thing to appreciate about Trevor's cryptids is that not all of them are dangerous. In fact, a decent chunk of them are harmless as stated by Trevor himself.

Design wise, the Pole Bugs are still pretty creepy. Pale humanoids with two sets of arms that can also double as legs to crawl around with. Akin to a... well... bug.

The caption is also pretty interesting too. Pole Bugs seem to be treated like annoying pests more than anything. Whole groups of them can show up, screwing up telephone poles and thus making it impossible to call anyone. As all you'll hear is just white noise and voices.

Nothing too spectacular about their designs which brings them down a bit, but the caption and the variety they add by being harmless but still annoying pests is really cool. 3.5/5

5. Milkwalker

"I drew the Milkwalker, the best mascot ever. Yes, he’s real."

This is Milkwalker.

I like Milkwalker :)

...

Honestly was thinking of just ending it there lmao. Anways, officially known as Milkwalker and widely known as Milkwalker Ambassador by the community (as I don't recall Trevor ever adding the ambassador part), this is technically not an original creation by Trevor. As Milkwalker has existed way before this illustration and he has some interesting history.

Darigold, an American dairy agriculture company that has existed since 1918, had a mascot that was known as Milkwalker in the 1980's. Appearing on milk cartons where... he looked quite strange to say the least. The text next to him didn't help matters either.

How anyone at the company looked at that thing and thought "Yeah! The kids will love this!" is a complete mystery to all of us as a species.

To make things even stranger, we have zero idea on who the creator of Milkwalker was. Despite attempts to question Darigold themselves about it.

Nonetheless, Milkwalker would make a revival into meme culture after a now deleted Tumblr blog known as Heck-Yeah-Old-Tech posted the image above where, presumably the poster, is holding a milk carton with Milkwalker on it. The image came with the following caption.

"There are some weird advertising characters out there. This is one of them: Darigold milk during the mid-1980s was putting Milkwalker, a pint of milk with arms and legs (and rather scary ones at that) and huge soul-gobbling eyes, on its boxes with tips on how to live your life safely. Those hinge knees, man. I’ve found no origin story, no other record of his being a thing that answers any questions about what Darigold was thinking and how long he was (to them and the schoolchildren who saw him daily) a thing."

Cue this thing appearing on multiple different social media and even getting a little fandom on Tumblr (because Tumblr has a fandom for everything apparently).

That's pretty much the whole story behind Milkwalker. Not much scare factor or anything deeper than that, but he's still pretty cool with a neat design and I like him a lot. Nice mix between being goofy af yet still slightly creepy.

Silly lil guy. 3/5

4. The Apartment Guest

"As summer gave way for autumn, he started to notice how empty his building was becoming. He'd always been friendly with the other residents, other elderly people like him, so it was strange that so many of them had left without seemingly saying a word. As he sat thinking about this, the wind blowing hard against his window, he heard noise from down the hall. Someone was knocking on each door and then moving on. "Looking for the last person left", was the thought that crossed his mind, as the pounding began at his door."

I've seen this thing go by a few different names in the community, but I simply refer to it as The Apartment Guest. The illustration here is simple but very effective. An uncomfortably up close shot to this humanoid with a black body and pale face. Their mouth and eyes just being empty voids. Disturbing.

Trevor could have just left it at that, but then there's that caption. Holy shit. The fucking caption.

Being up late at night, just casually scrolling through Trevor's Instagram page to search for some cryptids, and then reading "Looking for the last person left", was the thought that crossed his mind, as the pounding began at his door." was, quite literally, spine chilling. Especially visualizing being in that position. Hearing knocking on doors, the noise getting louder and closer to you, and then hearing pounding on your door? Why? Who is that? What are they going to do to me? The amount of horror that I would feel in that moment. Jesus christ.

This particular cryptid is a perfect example on how the captions that Trevor adds to his illustrations can make them all the more better, or in this case, all the more scarier. Not too much is told, but not too little is told either. It's the perfect amount.

Not much else to say. It's just very good. 5/5

3. The Wandering Faith

"* emergency storm warning * all residents please remain indoors and wait for further dispatches"

Often incorrectly referred to as Day 17 by the community due to a Gmod model of it going by the same name. Officially though, the name of this creature is The Wandering Faith.

The Wandering Faith is very interesting as it's apart of its own group of cryptids known as the Giants. The Giants presumably are in their own universe separate from the cryptids we usually see from Trevor, if this post is anything to go by.

Speculating about the Giants and their universe can be its own separate post, so lets focus solely on the Wandering Faith for now. What is this thing?

Well it's certainly fucking big that's for sure. So big in fact that its N E C C goes all the way up into the clouds and we have no idea what its head looks like. Interestingly though there seems to be tendrils of sorts on its N E C C. Looking at illustrations of some of the other Giants, these tendrils are also visible.

This lead to some theorizing about what was the deal with this thing and the other Giants. A big one being that most of the Giants are actually angels (hence why Wandering Faith has the name that it does). The reason why they have tendrils on them being that they use them to bring those worthy enough into heaven. Trevor would later confirm this theory.

So the Wandering Faith isn't malicious or harmful (at least not intentionally), it just wants to bring you into heaven, if you're lucky and deserving of that.

I never thought the Giants were scary or creepy (aside from maybe Breaking News). Always found them interesting more than anything. I really like the whole angel aspect with them and how later lore implies that some Giants are tasked with bringing the worthy up to heaven while other Giants are tasked with bringing destruction. Purging the world of sinners once everyone else has got their chance at an eternal vacation.

It really does feel akin to Noah's Flood for example. Except instead of a flood purging sinners, it's giant beings of mass destruction. It's really cool.

Overall, nice lore, awesome name, and a basic but still neat design. 4/5

2. Bridge Worm

"bridge worm"

Officially known as Bridge Worm, an illustration of this worm is posted with a caption that simply states its name. Depicting a large and white worm with humanoid arms and a sorrowful expression on its face. A lot of people's reaction to this image was that compared to all of the other cryptids? This lil guy looked pretty cute. And he does! Nothing about the image really implies that this thing is a threat. You would think this would be another one of those cryptids who were actually harmless, but you would be terribly wrong...

This image of the worm reveals that the cute and sad looking face we saw in the previous image wasn't its real face. It was a false one. A way to deceive you. In actuality, there's a freaky ass face under there, and we get to have a more closer look at it in the next image.

"The bridge worm will sometimes venture far from its nest if prey is hard to come by, instinctually hunting at night and in abandoned areas to avoid discovery. Photo below: The adolescent bridge worm folds back its false face as it prepares to feed. RIP Photographer Tomas Pearcing, missing and presumed dead. The scientific community thanks you for your service."

As we can see, the worm can fold back its false face, revealing a fleshy and oddly human looking face with bri-ish ass looking teeth and uneven eyes. The face that only a mother could love... people were still calling this thing cute though lol.

That said, there's some things to chew on with the caption provided here. Firstly, despite the name, the Bridge Worm can venture away from where it usually is when it's desperate. Secondly, "adolescent bridge worm". So this thing not only seems to be a species rather than a singular being, but the one we're seeing now and the previous one we saw earlier are just teenagers. So what the hell do the adults look like? We'll get back to that one. Thirdly, "The scientific community thanks you for your service." That line really intrigued me and got my brain going. What scientific community specifically? Are there people trying to study these worms and the other cryptids too? How is that like? How does that work? Even if that's not the case, this community now has knowledge and evidence of a strange and abnormal creature. So what will they do now? Are we actually getting some world building here? That rarely happens.

Some intriguing stuff there. Going back to questioning what an adult Bridge Worm looks like, there is this.

Here we get to see what an adult Bridge Worm looks like, which has also been referred to as the Highway Worm by the community. As they mature, they loose their limbs, become a sorta beige/brown color, and the false face seems to disappear as well.

This has most likely been retconned after some time however. As Trevor would later go on to post the patron saint image of the Bridge Worm on Twitter. Stating that their faces become more refined and human-like as they age, which is what we see below

"Patron saint of dark places, of hungry life, of spotless bones."

Yep. I'm officially having nightmares. Dear fucking god why does it kinda look like another one of those memes where they take the face of Thomas the Tank Engine and stretch it out of his body to ridiculous lengths.

Anyways I really like this weird worm fella! There's some cool biology stuff going on with this one that makes it stand out a bit. Definitely feels less like a paranormal creature and more like just a really weird and dangerous animal. I love the idea of it trying to mimic human faces too. It seems kinda silly at first. I mean, I'm pretty anyone with more than 2 functioning brain cells is gonna treat that trick the same way they treat a girls OnlyFans account: they're not buying that shit.

When you look at it being a stunted evolutionary tactic though, something that Trevor supposedly confirmed, it becomes a whole lot cooler. Nature isn't perfect of course and sometimes there will be fuck ups in evolution (like how our species suffers from back problems due to our quick jump from walking mostly on fours to walking solely on two legs).

As for my favorite illustration of the creature, I'd have to go with this one.

It's just so horrifically detailed and really shows how terrifying this thing is. Its fleshy face looks like its melting or can barely hold itself together. It's off putting that it looks so human when it's clearly not. As for the eyes, I like how they're done here. It was hard for me to find the previous illustration with the Bridge Worm's true face revealed to be scary. The eyes just made it look too goofy. Here though, they're executed way better. Coming off as more disturbing. I think it may have to do with how more realistic looking the illustration is overall.

In summary? Awesome worm boi. 5/5

1. The First One

"They'd said to avoid the back highways at night. People get turned around, get lost, go missing, turn up dead. Turn up alive but miles from where they thought they were. It happens all the time, they said. Bullshit. He had no time for that nonsense. He would take his chances."

April 4th, 2018. Trevor would post this to his Instagram account. I call this The First One. Why? Because it's Trevor's first cryptid! Of course, Trevor has been making art long before that, but this is the first artwork he made that went for the found footage aspect that he would later become famous for.

You can definitely tell this was Trevor's first attempt at trying to get the hang of this. The background is actually drawn instead of being a real life image taken from somewhere, something you can see with some of the other earlier works of Trevor as well. Yet it still tries to go for a realistic feel, which for a first attempt at this type of horror, doesn't look too bad.

The cryptid is very simple but still creepy design wise. An entirely grey humanoid whose body is not visible due to its height and it also seems to be floating slightly in the air. The caption here is simple as well, but it works. Adding some substance and horror to an otherwise basic monster.

Interestingly enough, Trevor would later revisit this illustration and tweak it a bit.

"Back from Chicago, time to get back to documenting the found footage of the last moments of the lives of various hitchhikers and urban explorers as they encountered deadly and unknowably monstrous supernatural forces."

I guess this was his attempt at making the illustration a bit more convincing. I like it! The vintage camcorder effect here is a nice change.

Overall, it's interesting to go back to many of Trevor's earlier illustrations and see just how much he has improved overtime. To look at this and then look at his more recent work, the jump in quality is insane.

The illustration itself isn't perfect, but it's still pretty solid, and it's interesting to see what the first cryptid was like. 3/5

Conclusion

Well! That wraps things up for now! I absolutely adore Trevor's work and I feel like in modern times he doesn't get the appreciation he really deserves. The designs he creates for his monsters are terrific and unique. The found footage artworks are amazing and only get better as time goes on. But of course, his regular and non-found footage artwork is amazing too. Just look at how horrifically beautiful this is.

I wanted to make a post like this because it pains how aside from badly done lore videos that just give you misinformation about the creatures (aside from Ancient Horror and Billy Styler, they're the goats), Trevor's creatures rarely get talked about and analyzed like this. You know what they say. "Fine, I'll do it myself".

I spent a long ass time starting from the very bottom of Trevor's Instagram page to climbing to the very top (almost at least, still have to go through a few more illustrations). Bookmarking cryptids, giving some of them names of my own, and just overall having fun looking at these designs and the captions provided with them. The reason behind that being that I don't want to focus solely on the popular cryptids. The lesser known ones deserve appreciation too! I would've never known what Trevor's first cryptid looked like if I didn't take that extra step.

So yeah, this was fun! Looking forward to doing more of this at some point. Thank you for reading and have a snazzy day!

[pupintransit]

At this stage post-op we are about three weeks out from the surgery. Things are healing fine, but not without some complications:

Wound dehiscence at the front of my canal. It'll heal on its own but kind of slowly. Plus according to the trans care nurse I saw it's likely to develop granular tissue, which is treated very easily but it's profoundly inconvenient nonetheless

Urinary tract infection. Search me how I contracted the fuckin' thing but we caught it early it seems. I was given some antibiotics at my last medical appointment, and I hope to christ they kick in soon cuz I had a fever of about 101.6 this morning. Cannot remember the last time I felt that physically weak and miserable. The other day I didn't have the strength to keep my legs prone to air dry properly

There's a hematoma underneath my vulva on my right side. It sounds worse than it is, and it seems to be going down on its own. Still, it is lengthening my recovery time for longer than I want, and it bleeds out of a pinprick sized wound on right side

Ughhhhhh.

Mentally I've been all over the place. I've been going through phases of regret and fear, which as I wrote about earlier this month I experience when I feel particularly bad. It passes just as i expect it too once the pain and dread stops. It doesn't make it any easier to deal with in the moment though. Sometimes you just have to ride the feeling out.

I get asked sometimes what it feels like to be cockless. The honest answer is that is that I don't know yet. I like how it looks and I love not having something dangle between my legs, but it still hurts. I won't be able to use my new parts the way I want to for at least a few more months. I'm still a little too swollen to find my clit too, and quite frankly I miss being able to cum.

I'm not fucking around with my health so despite all of the pain and fever I'm going through I'm still dilating on schedule four times a days and doing my hygiene routines as required. There are consequences if I don't, and I don't want to become complacent and stop. I've downsized to the blue and green dilators for the time being due to the pain caused by my dehiscence. I can always work back up to the orange one once everything heals up more. Right now I want to be sure that I maintain my depth and do so with the least amount of pain possible.

There's someone I follow online who has a Q&A section about their own gender affirming surgery on their social media who has a very salient point in one of the entries. I'm not gonna tag them and risk embarrassing them (but if you happen to be reading this please know that I think very highly of you!), but essentially their point was that, if you're asking someone if you should get bottom surgery of any kind, the answer is no you should not. Asking that means that you're still uncertain about whether or not it's the best decision. If you ask yourself if you want bottom surgery and the answer you come up with is "I don't know," that isn't good enough. For your own safety you need to wait until you are certain. That could take a very long time but it's still the most responsible thing you can.

I had several appointments with therapist and doctors in order to be sure this is what I wanted. When I am in my right mind I am confident in my choice and I don't regret it. You need to be sure you won't regret it too.

Anyway. My next appointment with the trans health care nurse is friday of next week. Luckily my husband is able to drive me since my brother isn't available this time and I really do not want to take transit for that long in order to get there. Ideally my UTI will have gotten better by then. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

[drill-teeth]

Sometimes I think about like. When I first really got access to the internet, so much of what I liked growing up suddenly became dirty.

I was raised as a girl. And I liked plenty of girl targeted media. Kim Possible and My Little Pony were some of my favorites. I also watched some media targeted more at young boys. Primarily anime. Like Dragon Ball Z and Naruto. Because my dad liked those, so he didn't really have an issue with me liking them too because it was cool to him to share some interests. Which was nice.

And eventually we got a family computer and I was allowed to use it pretty regularly starting mainly in middle school. And I wanted to draw all my favorite cartoon characters.

It was really easy to find reference images of the Naruto characters and Dragon Ball Z characters I liked. Most of the image results were screenshots from the show or cool fanart of them using their powers to blow stuff up. And I figured finding images to reference for Kim Possible and My Little Pony wouldn't be any harder. I had started watching Friendship Is Magic recently. Pinkie Pie and Rarity were my favorites, and I wanted to draw them. And Kim. And Shego.

And it did not take a long scroll down the Google image search results to see more than just a little suggestive or outright explicit porn art of all of them. And my curious mind wanted to know why that was in the search results. It didn't seem to me like that should be so easily available. But it turned out a LOT of people. Mostly grown men. Decided the ponies and Kim and Shego were sexy and decided to draw and post on many many non-adult catered websites a lot of porn.

And suddenly my pony figures and Equestria girls dolls felt like sex objects in my bedroom. And my Kim Possible fanart sitting in my sketchbook felt dirty. And the shows weren't as fun to watch anymore. I didn't end up finishing all the seasons of Friendship is Magic.

I sort of just threw myself into the boy things I was allowed to like since then. People didn't really have any questions about that, especially since I socially transitioned to male in highschool. I bet plenty of them just assumed I liked boy stuff to go with my new boy gender lol.

I wish I had still enjoyed Kim Possible and My Little Pony when I was younger though. I missed those medias but felt like I couldn't even touch them anymore. Especially after I went through a sexual trauma in highschool that I honestly don't want to publicly recount. I want to rewatch both series for fun. But I still can't work up the nerve.

And I think a lot about like. How I was lucky to have boy interests to fall back on because I know and knew plenty of people raised as girls who weren't allowed to watch boy targeted media at all. Who probably went through something eerily similar and then had nothing at all that felt okay to watch.

And sometimes I wish this was more important to people when they discuss media consumption and fandom. Sometimes I wish people were more interested in adult centered fandom sites for their horny art so at least some kid on the internet knows it's going to be porn before they choose whether or not to click. Sometimes I wish some of the first things I heard about when engaging with fandom centered around kids media weren't the top ten most disgusting porn fics. And even though I don't post explicit NSFW on my art Tumblr, I try to make it clear I find Transformers characters attractive so that people understand that before deciding to follow me even there or view more of my art. Because I actually think open and up front disclosure of "I am an adult who finds cartoon characters attractive so keep that in mind before you choose to view my work" is important. And honestly the least I can do.

And I'm not like. Saying you have to stop drawing cartoon characters sexy or whatever. I know I'm not going to stop finding Transformers robots hot. And I'm not out to advocate for censorship. I just think like. People are too used to pointing and laughing at sites pushing "kid friendly" fixes to their apps that don't do anything but frustrate users and just mean porn goes untagged. And are too used to just. Seeing cartoon character porn unfiltered cross their dash. That even well intentioned people don't really stop to pause to be like. Hey maybe I don't want my horny drawing of a kids show character to be at the top of Google search results. And maybe I should filter the image appropriately with the sites' filters or choose a more adult site for it in general.

Because honestly kids should be allowed to enjoy media without adults' sex fantasies being constantly inescapable to them.

[snoozingredpanda]

Benni Winters — Cupid’s Hit

GN!Reader

Warnings: Obsession, stalking, mention of a drug, typical yandere behaviours, swearing

—

• Benni doesn’t know what happened. It was like being hit with a truck of infatuation, like Cupid had taken out a personal hit on her.

• Maybe you were an exchange student, or maybe you were just the quiet kid that no one noticed. You could have been popular, or a teacher’s pet.

• But none of that matters.

• As soon as she sets her eyes on you, she’s head over heels.

• Benni’s heart flutters whenever she sees you, accompanied by a sharp intake of breath.

• Oh god. You look so fucking good today.

• As you walk past her, she gets a wave of the scent you’re wearing today. It makes her mouth water, biting her lip to stop herself from grabbing you right there and then.

• Her body moves on its own, and Benni finds herself silently following you down the corridor, pretending to be messing with her locker as you rummage for your textbook in yours

• It’s hard watching you, knowing you have no idea who she is. She’s positive you’ve never even noticed her, but that won’t stop her from trying.

• It’s a slow fall into madness.

• For months she’s just following you around, listening in on conversations, noting down your likes and dislikes, memorising your timetable. She’s fully committed to being your stalker, and no one, including yourself, seems to notice her obsessive behaviour.

• But over time she falls deeper in love with you. Benni’s breaking into your dorm room on the regular, just to see if you’ve brought any new clothes recently, or if there’s any evidence of a partner.

• She’s going out of her way to isolate you, going as far as planting heroin in a boy’s locker to get him expelled. She was sure you had a crush on him, she was absolutely convinced. But now he’s out of the way, right? Right?

• One by one your friends start to drop away from you, and you’ve got no idea why. Are you not good enough?

• But it’s just Benni, creating fake social media accounts to spread rumours around your friendship group, saying such awful things about you.

• She doesn’t mean it, she promises! It’s just so she can show you how two-faced your ‘friends’ are, how easily they’ll turn their backs on you as soon as someone says you like their boyfriend.

• Each day she takes it another step further, spiralling out of control. She gets you kicked out of your English Literature course, and makes it so the only three available classes were Biology, Criminology and Photography.

• She’s blinded by her infatuation. She’s fallen behind on assignments, doesn’t pay any attention to professors, her dorm room’s a complete mess, but NONE of that matters.

• All that does matter is that you’re in her Photography class, and you’re so fucking close to her, only three desks away.

• She’s at her breaking point, her mind’s full with such horrific thoughts, she can’t take it anymore. She hasn’t slept in a week, nor taken a bite to eat. She’s a ticking time bomb, she has to have you, she just has to have you, she needs you, SHE NEEDS YO—

• “Hey, do you have a partner?”

• She smiled up at you, her beautiful wolf-grey eyes hiding such horrors behind them.

• You should have just moved collages. Or even countries. But would that have stopped her?

• “No, I don’t. Benni Winters.”

• Blissfully unaware, you grin back, “Y/N L/N.”

• Oh she knows.

• She knows everything.

[not-goldy]

Btw . Just maturity or age of followers aren't everything. Where they based at matters too. Not every country is market for luxury brands.

And if majority followers fall outside of a brand's target market, they aren't going for that idol no matter how many "young fans" they might have. They aren't going to invest in that idol to "nurture his young followers" and wait years for them to grow up and never convert to a sale because they live in an economy where luxury brands can't have a market, yet.

What you're saying works for non luxury brands. Affordable, easily available, basic necessity and young fans across all countries can buy them.

Young fans are helpful when it comes to engagement through likes/views etc. That's good short term benefit.

But bts are music artists mainly, not social media influencers. They need people to engage in their art, buy and listen to their music and especially need fans in big music markets such as US/Europe etc, to stay relevant in the music industry. Bts' association with certain famous people can only take their career so far. It's their own art that'll take them as far as they can go. Otherwise with large followers who care less about their musuc, they'll become just another Kardashian and eventually fade from the music industry. And young fans might see another pretty face, hot body and move on.

Well I can only speak about metrics I know of and I don't know which country majority of their fanbase reside. Do share with the class if you know.🙂

I can only make wild guesses whom among BTS has a large western fanbase.

It's easy to say that is Jungkook or Jimin however I think in latter years they have been making music to appeal to their audience and for Tae to be hammering in on English songs long before Kook we can assume he has a lot of English speaking fans too🙂

An audience based in the US would of course be of more value to a marketer than an audience emanating from a 3rd country. That's a giving.

But for a kpop idol a large Korean fanbase is what's relevant to them and their career. Their western audience is just another metric they can leverage in brand deals. Not only do they meet the local market target they get eyeballs on your product from all over the world- but if the brand doesn't supply internationally that's equally irrelevant to the brand🙂

Brands are interested in building brand reputation social proof popularity just as much as revenue and profit. They have long term short term goals and may rely on different idols for their different needs at different times.

"Large following who care less about their music"

BTS are in a unique position. They brought their "large" audience to IG not the other way round unlike most of these influencers whose growth were precipitated by the platforms. So whatever large following Tae has you can assume he brought them with him.

And not all of his followers follow him because he is a musician. Lmao. Some are here because HE IS AN ACTOR. OTHERS FOLLOW HIM COS HE IS A MODEL AND A FASHION ICON. That does not in anyway take away from his power of influence.

Some members have majority of their fans cultivated solely from their music activities. SO OF COURSE, WHEN IT COMES TO MUSIC MOST OF THEIR FANS WILL ENGAGE THAT CONTENT.

But some members LIKE TAE HAVE DIVERSIFIED AUDIENCE WHO WANT TO ENGAGE THE DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF HIS CAREER.

Summary

All I've been saying thus far is BTS brought their audience to the platform and having that large numbers only means for Tae he will find more success EASILY on the platform based on how algorithms work. He has the most diversified audience out of BTS not all that follow him follows him because he sings.

You can't compare Tae and a Kardashian I'm sorry. That would be disingenuous of you.

[moncherrie]

under  the  cut,  you’ll  find  both  established  &&.  available  connections  for  cherrie  .  if  none  of  these  appeal  to  you,  we  can  easily  come  up  with  something  together  or  remix  a  connection  if  it  piques  your  interest  enough !  more  will  be  added  as  time  goes  on  .   i  prefer  plotting  through  d!scord  so  reach  out  to  me  @  too hot to cool off#3818  if  you’d  like  to  plot !

✼  ʾ   𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠  .

one.   bounce  back     /     this  was  the  group  of  people  who  cherrie  ended  up  gravitating  towards  &&.  making  friendships  with  over  that  summer  duration  of  her  blowing  up.  maybe  someone  could  be  latching  onto  her  because  they  saw  how  fast  she  was  becoming  known,  could  be  somebody  who  only  wants  to  be  around  her  because  they  just  can’t  figure  her  out  .  thoughts  can  run  wild  with  this  one .    (   0  /  4  taken  )

two.   break  the  windows  out  your  car     /     your  muse  was  the  unfortunate  being  who  formerly  dated  /  messed  around  with  cherrie  that  had  their  car  vandalized  .   clearly  the  two  of  you  ended  up  on  bad  terms  for  whatever  reason  we  can  discuss  but  it’s  very  likely  she  adores  messing  with  your  muse  and  pushing  their  buttons  in  public  then  playing  innocent  .   (   0  /  1  taken  )

three.   don’t  worry  ‘bout  me     /     your  muse  happened  to  find  cherrie  beyond  drunk  and  basically  keep  her  company  until  her  uber  gets  there  .  she  may  have  ranted  about  some  personal  issues  and  feelings  she  was  going  through  at  that  time  which  could  spark  the  two  of  them  becoming  unlikely  friends  or  just  a  shoulder  for  her  to  lean  on  .  be  warned,  she  will  deny  ever  doing  that  &&.  possibly  dodge  your  muse  to  avoid  the  conversation  but  eventually  may  warm  up  to  them  .     (  taken  )

four.    ruin  my  life     /     in  the  midst  of  cherrie’s  spiral,  she  became  close  to  your  muse  who  just  so  happened  to  have  been  a  bad  influence  on  her.  the  two  of  them  could’ve  gotten  up  to  no  good  whatsoever  .  when  she  finally  began  getting  herself  together,  she  cut  your  muse  off  like  a  loose  piece  of  fabric  .  she  actively  avoids  them  but  who’s  to  say  she  won’t  come  back  ?     (  0  /  1  taken  )

five.   what’s  new     /     music  industry  beef !   your  muse  could  have  been  a  nominee  for  the  same  grammy  she  won  and  they  really  don’t  believe  that  shit  was  fair  .  maybe  this  resulted  in  some  shady  back  and  forth  on  social  media  to  callouts  during  interviews ?  or  they  keep  it  classy  and  make  snide  remarks  when  coming  face  to  face  ?  the  options  are  endless  .   (  0  /  ??  taken  )

six.   time  lapse     /     your  muse  could  have  been  a  genuine  friend  to  cherrie  before  her  little  spiral  era  .  maybe  they  were  trying  to  talk  sense  into  her  but  she  could’ve  just  argued  with  them  until  they  decided  to  cut  her  off  instead  .  now  that  she’s  in  the  right  state  of  mind,  she  really  wants  to  fix  things  between  the  two  of  them  but  depending  on  how  bad  their  fight  was,  it’ll  take  some  time  before  they  reach  a  compromise  .   (  0  /  2  taken  )

seven.   not  my  problem     /     a  good  ole  blackmailing  plot  .  truthfully  she  could  have  needed  your  muse  for  something  but  they  wouldn’t  do  it  willing  so  she  resorted  to  other  way  to  get  their  attention  .  genuinely  this  plot  is  super  open  because  she  can  be  that  type  of  person  but  we  can  discuss  more  if  you  want  it !   (   0  /  1  taken  )

eight.   sweet  melody     /     for  some  reason  your  muse  stuck  by  cherrie’s  side  throughout  it  all .  they’re  often  the  first  person  she  calls  when  in  trouble,  or  if  she  just  wants  to  do  something.  your  muse  is  her  saving  grace  in  a  way  and  she’s  forever  grateful  for  them .   (  0  /  2  taken  )

nine.   we’re  good     /     cherrie  and  your  muse  are  a  duo  that  like  to  bring  chaos  .  i  picture  them  sorta  confiding  in  each  other  about  those  they  don’t  like,  gossip  to  each  other  during  spa  days,  all  that  nonsense  .  nothing  good  ever  follows  if  these  two  are  near  one  another  .  but  is  the  relationship  genuine  friendship  or  are  they  using  each  other  ?  find  out  next  time  on  dragon  ball  z  .   (  0  /  1  taken  )

ten.    talk  about  love     /     cherrie  is  head  over  heels  for  your  muse  but  cannot  bring  herself  to  tell  them  .  maybe  they’re  in  love  with  someone  else,  maybe  she’s  afraid  of  rejection  (  99.9%  correct  but  ok  )  or  she  just  doesn’t  think  they’re  in  to  her  like  that .  regardless,  she’s  always  there  for  them  and  gives  harsh  advice  on  romance  (  bonus  if  they  hook  up  a  lot  and  tell  her  their  stories  )  but  she’d  rather  have  that  than  not  have  them  at  all.

✼  ʾ   𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑡𝑠  .

friends  by  association.   one  night  stands  /  friends  with  benefits.   drinking  buddies.   pr  relationship.   people  she’s  collaborated  with.   media  pins  you  against  each  other.   unlikely  duo.   co-stars.   always  run  into  each  other.   did  a  shoot  together,  ended  good  /  bad.

[rabbitindisguise]

I think honestly the most frustrating thing is that there's no other truly free blogging website with as much cross-user interaction as tumblr (tumblr positive, if cranky, rant)

what I mean is when I tried to find a replacement tumblr, my options were cohost (close, but not the same, and not nearly as active), wordpress (completely divorced from any integrated community), boba boards (does not currently exist as far as I'm concerned because I can't get an account!), mastodon (more like twitter than anything else and and not nearly as user friendly as tumblr). Dreamwidth comes close but again, it's just not the same- you can't reblog and add additions and the image quality is very bad last I checked. Neocities gets real close but again, it's just not integrated enough.

And it's like, this is why there is no competition and that's why people just won't leave. This is literally the best fandom website, it's better than pinterest, it's better than youtube, it's better than any dedicated music platform/art platform/photography hosting website for people who want to do more than one thing at a time. It's basically the cellphone of social media. You can do music. You can do video. You can do embeds and uploads. You can interact with literally broken parts of the website (deleted users, posts, glitches, etc). You can curate moodboards. You can posts photos of your pets. You can live blog, you can embed links, you can add summaries and excerpts, customize the text with lists and colors. It's a lot less functionality in any one feature than other places, but other places require $$$ for a quarter of what tumblr does half functional. It works for photographers, musicians, authors, bloggers, artists, fans of anything, people interested in STEM and anything that uses hyperlinked citation, crafters and other people who sell/use/share digital products like patterns, coders, etc. Those groups exist everywhere on social media, but nowhere else can you independently host full length blog posts, high quality images, and videos with as many users as tumblr has. At least none that I'm aware of.

You can ~build a following~ on tumblr, but most importantly you can like . . . find stuff you like? Easily? Just find one mildly interesting blog and find out who they reblog from and who reblogs from them and you suddenly have access to thousands of people who share similar interests and are using the site regularly.

If they really sincerely want more users, pausing in place (and improving features like they had been) and pivoting the marketing strategy it might actually work. It's just a matter of where to put the ads and what kinds of things to say in them. "Premium" website services that charge 10, 20, 35 dollars a month for what tumblr does for free would be gutted by tumblrs new indie shop features. Squarespace, ghost or whatever it's called, ko-fi, linktree, medium, shopify, etc would all be chipped away at very easily, while the other big name social media websites wouldn't. "Small business? Want a sleek minimalist shop experience? Personalized updates? Tumblr might be for you!" Or "self pub author? join hundreds of authors online talking about their creative process and sharing updates on their work! No character limit!" Or "tired of complicated server management? hate fixing bugs and code? try tumblr." Like jesus it's just that they don't actually understand what's actually available because they don't seem to get why so many different people use it. They're trying to turn a swiss army knife into a spatula and wondering why people keep telling them it isn't going to work :/

i get the point of the polls informally showing that the vast majority of tumblr users have been here for years and barely anyone is new. the problem is that the suits don't look at that kind of data and go "ah, we understand. the majority of our users are oldheads who want things to stay the same. we misunderstood our audience." they absolutely have hard numbers on these things. they surely know most active users have been here forever. but they look at these stats and go "wow, our growth rate really IS shit. we're still relying on an ever-dwindling pool of users who have been here since they were teenagers in the early 2010s. we need to be working even harder to make this place appeal to new users"

the higher ups and investors on sites like this want infinite growth forever. this is why they keep changing the layout to make it look like other, more popular sites, even though we hate it. this is why they try out shit like tumblr live that doesn't appeal to the established core userbase in the slightest. it's not for us. it's also not for the ~5% of active users (if the poll going around is to be believed) who signed up within the last year. no, they're chasing after the hundreds of millions of people who use twitter and the BILLIONS of people who use tiktok, hoping to appeal to them and make tumblr more popular again

this is, of course, deeply stupid. nobody is leaving tiktok to hop on tumblr live. they already have tiktok. and we're on tumblr because we like tumblr, not because we want it to morph into something else. but i'm sure automattic's got venture capital investors breathing down their necks going "why isn't tumblr more like twitter or tiktok or facebook or instagram or" etc. etc., and so here we are

[sabeehajabin]

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[mimikyuno]

You're a big sekai head. Is there a good way to engage with its content that isn't just playing the gacha game, that you know of?

a big sekai head…. 🙂‍↕️

hmm tbh i started engaging with the game when i actually started playing so im. hmm

okay this answer might be a bit longer than u were expecting but i hope it’ll be useful!

the way the game works is you have the rhythm game part, and the stories. each unit has a main story, and then there are events, which come out periodically, one after the other. events can be a key story event (about just one unit, focusing on one character from that unit) or mixed unit (so with multiple characters from different units). you can easily follow the story of one group by reading just their main story and then their key stories, but i think it’s all much more enjoyable when you go in order, bc sometimes they reference past mixed events or smth that has happened in another unit’s key story. there’s also the side stories which just add a couple of scenes to an event and those are indeed locked behind actually having the cards related to the event, but you can always find the side stories online, and honestly i dont read them much (unless they involve my faves uwu).

so imo you don’t need to play into the gacha mechanics or even the rhythm game aspect to enjoy the content, you can download the game and just read the stories! they’re all available (like, you dont need to play to unlock them!) and neatly organized (you can even organize them by unit, characters appearing, when they happened etc.) basically, you can treat the app like a free visual novel and pretend the cards dont exist lol you can even play the rhythm game ignoring the gacha system, bc after readind the first chapter of the main story of a certain unit you get the 2* cards of the respective characters, so then u can make a team and play some songs just for fun

but if u rly dont want to get it (i know some people are against gacha games as a principle!) i guess you can check the schedule of past events on the fanwiki and the then google them one by one to see if u can find them online (i know the official project sekai channel is uploading past events, just know they’re quite late lol and that’s on top of the 1 year delay compared to the jp server). i’d still recommend reading them on the actual game tho, or at least i prefer it! you can press to go forward faster if the auto speed feels slow or pull up the log to read back etc.

either way i’d say find a way to read the stories in order, at least the main story of each unit so you get to know the characters and choose your faves! after that you can totally just read the events related to your favourite characters / units. and then you just follow people who post about prsk / create fan content for it and follow some tags (i follow the tags for my favorite prsk ships on my social media uwu)

prsk is quite popular so there is a LOT of fan content out there, on every major social media platform… which is both a blessing and a curse lmao

GOOD LUCK!! if u get into it feel free to come into my inbox to scream about mizuena and kanamafu <3 OH and this is a good (or bad) time to get into prsk bc mizuki’s focus event is coming in 5 days and everyone is losing their mind 🏳️‍⚧️

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[jpchathamandfriends]

All right so I've been thinking a bit more about this. You know what might actually work? Crabs. Hear me out. Tagging @staff because I legit think this is a good idea.

First let's consider what people don't like about algorithms in social media feeds. Algorithms take away our feeling of control, turning us into passive consumers of whatever the algorithm chooses for us to see. They're inscrutable, choosing posts based on some occult machine learning model that either can't be comprehended by humans or is kept a jealously guarded secret. They usually are optimized to maximize things that can be measured, like clicks or time spent staring at something, instead of things that matter like enjoyment or dialogue. And they're really not that great at the end of the day, they tend to settle on showing someone the same sort of thing over and over again, and that thing tends toward nazism more often than it really should.

There are benefits to algorithms too! A few of them are beneficial to both users and corporate overlords, and many are beneficial to corporate overlords but hostile to users. With all the nonsense that the overlords of other social media sites are getting themselves into these days, it really makes sense that tumblr users are worried that our own overlords are going to mess things up unrecoverably. Fortunately the benefits in @staff's original post look beneficial to users as well, but a competent evil marketing genius could easily try and sneak something horrible in there too.

So here is my proposed solution!

Don't mess with our feeds at all. Our followers' posts should still come up chronologically like they always have. But, what if there were some algorithm bots that we could follow *if we wanted to*? We'd interact with them the same way we interact with user-created bots: follow them if we want, unfollow them if they get annoying. They'd put posts in our feeds. The user experience doesn't change, there's just more stuff there.

The reason I'm suggesting multiple bots is that I think they should be a) cute, b) comprehensible, and c) stupid. And, d) they should be tumblr crabs. Imagine: There are twenty or so crab bots out there. They all have names, and their profile pictures are the same pixelated crab emoji except all in different colors with a different hat or thing in their claw. But each one has a different algorithm. Maybe there's a green one named Sally The Crab and she has a flower. Her page is titled "I'll bring you pictures of landscapes!" and if I follow her, then whenever it's time for her post to show up on my feed, I get a photo that someone else recently posted, that has been somehow determined to be a landscape photo. Maybe Ivan The Crab shows me literally the most recent post that anyone posted to the site. Maybe Rodrigues The Crab randomly chooses a reblog of a random post that's at least 1 year old and has at least 1,000 reblogs, or Maureen The Crab shows me a random user's 10th post. Or, I can go to any of their pages, and I can see an entire blog full of whatever their specialty is. Or, I can choose not to follow any of them and my user experience remains unchanged.

But here are some very important notes:

- These bots choose different things for different people. When it comes time for Ivan The Crab to post to my feed, he chooses a post based on his algorithm. When Ivan posts to your feed, his algorithm will almost certainly choose a different post. When I go to Ivan's page, it will almost certainly not show me the post he put on my feed, or on yours. In this way, they don't behave like real users - they have the complete tumblr database and API available to them. This way, it's not like winning the lottery when a crab finds your post, and it's much more likely that a given post will end up in front of *someone*.

- I would still like a slider or something to control how often a crab posts to my feed. If I have my slider set to 1/30 posts (or whatever), then on the 30th post I see, one of the crabs I follow will run its algorithm and show me something. I probably won't use tumblr for the purpose of seeing what the crabs have to show me, I just want to see them stop by every once in a while. If I have my slider set to more than 0 crab posts but I'm not following any crabs, I should probably get an error message.

- The algorithms should be simple and comprehensible! "Algorithm" is a scary word these days. In popular culture it really does have connotations of a huge inscrutable neural network/ machine learning model that's trying to influence culture to some nefarious end. Don't do that. Maybe one or two crabs can try and guess posts that I might like based on my likes and/or reblogs, but I honestly probably won't follow those. Instead, go for something that's non-threatening, fun or interesting or a bit bizarre, and easy for someone who's not a coder to understand. It's all about the accessibility and the feeling of control.

- Crab posts should probably be marked specially, like the "Sponsored" or "Blazed" posts are. Just for maximum transparency. Tumblr users are scared of algorithms, and they're not entirely wrong to be scared of them since algorithms tend to destroy community and tumblr is all about community. Please be transparent.

- If I reblog a crab post, I don't think the reblog chain should show that. If someone likes one of my posts enough to reblog it, I don't really want to know whether they found it organically or from a crab putting it in their feed.

- Maybe new users should automatically start out following some crabs - either all of them or a curated selection. Maybe the curated selection should even include a very annoying one, so people are motivated to figure out how to use the unfollow feature early?

Anyway that's what I think :) 🦀

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

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Email Marketing Innovations: Beyond the Traditional Newsletter

In the ever-evolving digital landscape, where trends emerge and fade like ripples in a vast ocean, one marketing strategy remains steadfast: email marketing. This tool that started in the humbling period of newsletters has developed into a force that has gone beyond what was imagined, is doing more than the newsletter, and is now a tool that is driving interaction, relationships, and business.

The Journey of Email Marketing

The Early Years (1971-1990)

The story is dated to 1971, when Ray Tomlinson sent the first ever email, and this was the first step that changed the course of communication history. Let's go back to the late 1990s, when marketers had already improved their communication with customers by using email. HTML emails were introduced, and they did not only exchange plain text for visually appealing messages. While the traditional newsletter persisted, a one-size-fits-all approach didn’t meet individual needs.

The Evolution: Beyond Newsletters

1. Newsletter Automation: Personalization at Scale

Think about a world where subscribers get content that is as customized as possible. An example of this would be every subscriber receiving content that is tailored precisely to their liking. Enter newsletter automation. Through data and analytics, marketers are able to create email campaigns that are personalized to each recipient and that connect with their individual styles. Whether it's about suggesting products based on previous purchases or sending personalized birthday wishes, automation makes sure that every subscriber feels special.

2. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI-based personalization is the next step in AI-driven email marketing. The algorithms analyze user behavior, segment the audience, and help to improve every element of the email, from subject lines to the products’ recommendations. For example, you receive an email that knows your preferences even better than you do!

3. Interactive Elements

When dynamic emails are available, why would you want to send the same boring emails? Include such elements as polls, quizzes, and countdown timers, which will make the video more engaging for the viewers. On the one hand, they raise the level of engagement; however, they are also an amazing tool to find out about customers’ preferences. Consider a subscriber who actively participates in a quiz that is included in an email; well, that is what I call engagement.

4. Video Content

The days of simple email marketing are numbered, with videos leading the way. It could be a product demo, a backstage clip, or a customer testimonial. All those things are more engaging and deliver messages more effectively than textual content. Imagine receiving an email that shows a video with some great music inside the message.

5. Voice-Activated Emails

Since voice assistants have increased in popularity, it is necessary to offer voice-activated email experiences to make the process easier. Imagine subscribers proclaiming, “Read my latest offers” to their smart devices, and, suddenly, the email content appears. It’s as if you had an assistant in your inbox!

6. Accessibility Matters

Make sure to design your emails so that users with special needs will not face any problems. Use alt text for images, ensure the entire design is highly contrasting, and structure content to be read by screen readers. Imagine crafting your emails in a way that everyone can read, understand, and access them easily.

7. Social Media Integration

Guarantee that email campaigns run in sync with social platforms. Urge subscribers to share content, follow your brand, and join conversations. Create an engaging profile description that clearly defines your business and highlights its unique selling points. Describe your products or services in detail, including their features, benefits, and how they address the needs of your target audience. Feel how the bounce-back effect occurs as your email content goes through social media networks.

8. Gamification

Create a lighthearted touch! Scratch cards, spin-the-wheel to win challenges, or loyalty point rewards will transform the company’s boring emails into an exciting journey. Imagine this scenario when subscribers are busy scratching their screens, attempting to reveal certain offers.

9. Omnichannel Experiences

Email has to be contextualized. Design a communication plan using email, social media, and your website that gives your brand a coherent experience. For instance, imagine a brand-smooth trip where your customers interact with you at several different touchpoints.

Conclusion: 

Keep this in mind as email marketing expands: email marketing is not only about newsletters nowadays. It’s not just an advertisement; it’s the relationship building, conversion driving, and experience creation at the end of the day. Here’s your call to action:

Revamp Your Strategy: Assess your current email marketing. Do you capitalize on these new products? If not, be flexible to change and adapt to new conditions.

Segment and personalize: By using data to divide your audience and provide content that strikes a chord, you can engage them effectively. Make every email count.

Have questions or need assistance? Reach out to us. Let’s embark on this email marketing journey together. Craft impactful campaigns, engage your subscribers, and watch your business soar!

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