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dawnfelagund · 6 years ago

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So I just listened to your presentation about the Tolkien fandom - which is really good btw, very informative - and the point that transformational fanfiction is mostly female got me thinking (mainly bc in my experience fanfiction in general seems more female, I have knowingly read only three authors who identified as male). Do you think that's bc most fandoms have a distinct lack of fem characters, so fem writers have an incentive to write transformational fics that male writers don't?

Oh my, oh my this is such a good question that I fear I will not answer it as well as it deserves. But I’ll try!

(Here is the presentation mentioned in the ask, for anyone who wants context. Both video and text are available at the link.)

Why transformational fandom trends female is complicated and has been the subject of much discussion/debate since the advent of fanfic studies back in the early ‘90s. Early scholarship focused on women using fanfic to expand the original texts so that the better reflected the women/author’s own experiences, especially where emotions and relationships were concerned. From Jenkins’ Textual Poachers (1991):

Fans want not simply internal consistency but also what Ien Ang has described as “emotional realism.” Ang (1985) suggests that Dallas fans viewed the program not as “empirically” true to real-world experiences of upper-class Texans but rather as “emotionally” true to the viewers’ personal lives…. (107)

Female readers entered directly into the fictional world, focusing less on the extratextual process of its writing than on the relationships and events. … The female reader saw her own “tacit inferences” as a legitimate part of the story …. Moreover, male readers tended to maintain the narrative’s pre-existing focus on a central protagonist, while female readers expressed a greater eagerness to explore a broader ranger of social relationships …. (108-9, citing David Bleich [1986])

Camille Bacon-Smith, author of Enterprising Women (also 1991) writes:

Fanwriters, like soap opera fans, want to see characters change and evolve, have families, and rise to the challenge of internal and external crises in a nonlinear, dense tapestry of experience. Whether because of innate qualities or socialization, women perceive their lives in this way, and they like to see that structure reproduced in their literature. The writing experience becomes one of participation in the lives of the characters. (64)

Jenkins and Bacon-Smith really established fanfic studies as we know it, so I include these ideas to show how foundational they are and, I believe, underlie more recent resistant/reparative motives. Underlying this early assumption is that mainstream media and literature doesn’t represent the experiences of women, so we have to create it ourselves. Hence what we’d now call transformational fandom: the shifting of authority onto the fanwriter to rework a fictional universe according to her own experience of reality. I think this holds true in Tolkienfic fandom, although it is more complex than the theories above (rooted in media, not book, fandom) suggest, in that my research shows that Tolkienfic authors engage in much more negotiation with canon details and (most importantly) Tolkien’s authority. In other words, they care about how to create that “emotional realism” but within the confines of the canon, which many would take to include Tolkien’s views, unstated in the texts, on the canon and even his moral prerogatives.

My sense is that there is a definite connection between the early ideas of women creating fanworks to see their realities and experiences represented in the fictional universes they love and the present-day idea of fanfiction as a form of resistant reading. (Here, I am perfectly willing to have my hand smacked by people better versed in fan studies history if I’m mangling or missing key pieces of the relationship between these two schools of thought. Just speak up.) Because part of the experience of being a woman is opening a history book and not seeing the lives of women represented or going to a film where women usually make up a minority of the cast (and are often cast into stereotyped roles). Part of our experience as Tolkien fans is coming to terms with our love of a book (LotR) where, to borrow the wince-inducing stat cited by Una McCormick, there are more named horses than women. (The Silmarillion fares better in terms of named women but still isn’t great, as I have argued elsewhere, in providing those named women with roles and agency equal to that of the men.)

(Here I’m going to focus on the Tolkienfic fandom. I know your question was broader than that, but I study the Tolkienfic fandom, and as a fan, I’m monofandom myself, so I’m hesitant to speak about the norms and practices in other fandoms, nor am I as familiar with their scholarship. Others with insights about other present-day fandoms, please do add on.)

Una McCormick has a fabulous essay in Perilous and Fair that positions Tolkienfic as a form of what she calls “reparative reading”:

The complexity of such reading and writing practices and the ambivalence of the creative labor involved in making repairs upon such texts have driven some women readers to find a presence for themselves in The Lord of the Rings through writing fanfiction as a creative-critical response to Tolkien’s text. By weaving female characters into the familiar narrative, or else focusing upon marginalized characters such as nurses, servants, and non-combatants, these authors write themselves–or those like themselves–into the events of the War of the Ring. (310)

Una is a fanfic writer herself and a Tolkien scholar, and her work is unique in this sense, because she is intimately familiar with the Tolkienfic community as a participant and also because she has written one of the rare fanfic studies pieces focusing exclusively on our fandom. However–and I don’t think Una would disagree–reparative reading is just a part of Tolkienfic fandom, so I don’t think it fully explains the “transformational is female” trend. It is certainly part of it. My survey data shows a strong interest among Tolkienfic authors; 78% agree that “Writing fan fiction lets me explore the perspectives of female characters.” (80% of readers “like reading fan fiction about female characters.”)

What is interesting is that there is not a big difference in how women and men respond to the statement “Writing fan fiction allows me to explore the perspectives of femalecharacters.” 78% of women agreed; 73% of men agreed. Where there is a significant difference: 90% of nonbinary survey participants agreed with this survey item. (It’s worth noting that the sample of men was small. Less than 4% of survey participants identified as male.)

I also feel that I have to note that, historically, Tolkienfic fandom has had contingents hostile to including women characters in Tolkien-based fanfiction. Many who started in the fandom when I did (mid-2000s) will remember when “OFC = Mary Sue” (itself a term that I find sexist since the number of scrawny, nerdy dudes who become superheroes in comics attests that adding a dose of Awesome to a whopping pile of Ordinary is not inherently deserving of derision), and many people avoided writing women characters because they were a flame magnet. Key to this piece of history, too, is that, in my experience, the detractors and bullies of creators who wrote about women? Were, like the rest of the Tolkienfic fandom, a majority women. This was not guys trying to preserve a boys-only treehouse in the canon; this was women policing other women’s production of fanfiction, often using the canon itself as a tool to do so.

It’s also worth noting that changes in fandom perception of women characters has been due to the concerted effort of fans to draw attention to sexism in the canon and in the fandom and to celebrate fanworks that feature strong women characters. @vefanyar‘s concept of the textual ghost is the prime example in my mind, in that she not only drew attention to the problems in the canon–simply scrolling through her Textual Ghost Project is a visually provoking experience–but the potential for fanworks creators to address those problems in the reparative way that Una McCormick identifies. @vefanyar, among others, has paired this work with the canon with a concerted, years-long effort to encourage and celebrate fanworks about Tolkien’s women, creating a climate where, finally, it feels like writing about women comes with more rewards than risks.

So. To conclude. I think that the scholarship, my data, and my own experience as a Tolkienfic author/archive owner points to an answer to “Why is transformational fandom overwhelmingly female?” in the context of Tolkienfic fandom, as: It’s complicated. Yes, some of us are working to address the inequality both in the number and quality of female characters in the canon. But as my presentation states, this is just a partial picture because Tolkienfic fandom is not fully transformational, and women are attracted to this fandom for reasons that have nothing to do with establishing gender parity in the canon. I earlier held up the stats of 78% of authors (and 80% of readers) enjoying fanfiction about women to suggest that there is an interest in telling women’s stories in the fandom, but I’d also say that the one in five not interested (or not sure if they’re interested) in stories about women aren’t insignificant. This is still a sizable contingent of the fandom, a majority of whom are women. The desire to produce transformational fanworks runs deep in women fans and may hearken back to Jenkins’ and Bacon-Smith’s broader ideas about women’s experiences, may suggest a difference in how girls/women are socialized, may reflect barriers to entering more affirmationally oriented fan communities, or may come down to something else (like the social/community aspect of fandom) entirely.

#tolkien #tolkien fanfiction #tolkien fan studies #tolkien fandom history

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lovehaswonangelnumbers · 5 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/lovehaswon-astrology-updatefull-moon-in-aquarius-mermaid-magic/

LoveHasWon Astrology Update~Full Moon in Aquarius: Mermaid Magic

By Archeia Aurora of The First Contact Ground Crew Team

Today we have the Full Moon in Aquarius, bring us all a deep and intense release. Aquarius is often confused as water sign because its symbol is the water bearer. However, Aquarius is indeed an air sign, but the water bearer element means the spreading of wisdom. Aquarius is the sign of evolution, humanity and higher consciousness.

This Full Moon is closing a 2 year journey that began in 2017 with the Full Solar Eclipse in Leo, Aquarius’ opposite. We have gone through a complete transformation of learning to follow our hearts (Leo) and serving a greater purpose (Aquarius). Uranus, Aquarius’ ruler, is known for his sudden shake ups and rebelliousness. Uranus pushes us to see a wider perspective, a higher outlook on what we are doing here on this planet. He refuses to allow stagnation, he will push us to evolve at all costs. Many times this appears as chaos, but there is no great change without chaos.

We currently have 5 planets in fire signs, making this Moon in credibly powerful and full of creative energy. The Sun, Venus, Mars and Mercury are all in Leo, Aquarius’ opposing sign. We also have Jupiter in Sagittarius who has just turned direct, causing massive expansion in knowledge and abundance. The Full Moon is directly in opposing Venus and Mars, the feminine and masculine counterparts.

This is drawing our attention and awareness towards both our inner feminine and masculine, and our relationship with the feminine and masculine in our lives. The masculine and feminine dynamic has long been a way the Cabal has got humanity stuck in very low frequencies. The masculine were so devoid of feeling they could not connect with the feminine, so instead they over powered them, used them and abused them. In turn, the feminine, in a desperate attempt to connect with the masculine became their lower selves. They used lust, manipulation and control to lure the masculine in. These toxic dynamics have continued for eons of time and have completely destroyed the true blueprint of the divine masculine/feminine unions.

This Full Moon will be highlighting these wounds between the masculine and feminine, as well as how us where we have not followed our hearts or where we have allowed ourselves to be kept small in fear of being who we truly are. We are now in the Age of Aquarius, the Golden Age of consciousness, knowledge and wisdom and we are to evolve or not, that is the choice.

I feel strongly the Mermaid consciousness coming through for this Full Moon. Mermaids hold Aquarius vibes~they embody the non attachment air of the Aquarius as well as the fluidity and wisdom of the water bearer. Mermaids are raw feminine energy, that is both untamed and incredibly intuitive and magical. Mermaids are divinely non attached, they literally and figuratively go with the flow, never to be held down. Because Mermaids are both free spirits and deep soul beings, they hold so much emotional depth that can reach even the most withdrawn souls, but they also are divinely intelligent and extremely creative.

They are one with the ocean, the sea creatures, the elements. There is a myth that mermaids will only show themselves to those who are in the heart, which is why they are such a rare sight. The mermaid is so empathic she is constantly absorbing the energies of others, which requires her to protect her magic at all costs.

She is both the inner child and the warrior, she is balanced harmonics. As the full moon is opposing both Venus (feminine) and Mars (masculine), we are now in a tense aspect between the false identity we have created and our inner truth. Mermaids embody the originality of the Aquarius~they are unique, mystical, ethereal, and do not conform to norms. We are all being pushed to love authentically as who we are. This is more a process of dissolving all that is NOT truly us rather than becoming something else.

Aquarius is ruled by Uranus who just went retrograde. He marches to the beat of his own drum, he lives outside the box and he is not afraid to be the weird, wild one. As matrix continues to glitch, so will our egoic masks. We can no longer hide who we are and now we have to take a deep long look at that is. What have we chosen to become? How bold are we to break through the rules and conformity? How fearless are we to rebel against the entire system ?

The dawn of a new age is here and our attachments to all that is of the old 3D system is quickly being washed away and replaced completely with the unknown. We must cut chords with our old self and boldly embrace our Higher Self, our true self. This Aquarius Full Moon is imploring us to really LET GO of all that has been, both in this lifetime and other lifetimes, and start embracing the truth that this is it. This is the ascension and final battle of darkness that will ever occur and we are to be fearless in embodying our light. The keys to our freedom are there for us to receive, we must choose whether we want to open up the door or not. This is your choice point.

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askariakapo90 · 4 years ago

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Reiki Reviews Marvelous Diy Ideas

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Learn Reiki In Rishikesh

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How To Give Reiki Distance Healing

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#Reiki Reviews Marvelous Diy Ideas #What Do Reiki Practitioners Feel

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warmdevs · 5 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://warmdevs.com/brand-is-experience-in-the-digital-age.html

Brand Is Experience in the Digital Age

The Concept of Brand: A Lesson from Edward “Blackbeard” Teach

Edward Teach, the pirate better known as Blackbeard, is one of the most infamous pillagers in history. More relevant to our interests, however, is that he was also a man who understood the importance of creating an enduring impression. In short, he understood the value of brand.

Before a siege, Blackbeard dressed himself in a dark heavy coat and captain’s hat to accentuate his domineering stature. He strapped pistols to his chest and tucked lit, smoking fuses under his hat and in his beard to create an image reminiscent of the devil himself having just emerged from some smoky brimstone lair. In doing so, he created a personal brand of intimidation and malice.

As his pillaging continued and Blackbeard grew in craftiness, he realized it would be prudent to extend the essence of his menacing nature from afar. He devised a tool to extend his message — an early version of the skull-and-crossbones pirate flag we all know well today. The flag served as Blackbeard’s personal brand mark — his logo. It conveyed his reputation; it communicated who was approaching and suggested that a defense would be futile. It was, in a sense, a brand promise — that any fight would end badly for his foe.

Blackbeard (left) used an image on his flag (right), much like logo, to communicate his personal brand.

The Modern History of Branding

When we think about branding in our present setting, our minds probably go more quickly to logos and slogans than to fear-inducing pirates. But even those concepts are only the beginning of what brand means today.

Brands and branding have two traditional definitions, which are often confused:

A brand is the representation of the product: something that identifies it in a recognizable way. This could be a name, a logo, colors, writing style, or other media forms such as sound marks.

A brand is the product’s reputation, which creates certain customer expectations about the product. In other words, once customers recognize the brand representation (definition #1), they also project specific attributes onto the product — maybe that it will be high quality, healthy, or allow them to be seen as trendy or fashionable.

While “branding” products with an identifying mark (definition #1) has been around since people first began trading and selling goods, the use of brands to differentiate products — to truly attempt to influence consumers’ perceptions and choices within a market (definition #2) — is a relatively modern idea that appeared with the rise of industrialism. Industrialism, followed shortly by consumerism, introduced a proliferation of products in the market, and, with that, the concept of choice for consumers. Brand transformed into more than an identifying mark: It began to communicate a message — a promise about a particular product or company compared to another.

In the earlier part of the 20th century — the onset of modern branding — this relationship was one-sided. The stream of information flew one-way from brand to consumer. This communication was reminiscent of Blackbeard’s version of branding: a carefully crafted one-way message delivered to a receiver, with no opportunity for dialogue or compromise.

The Digital Age changed everything by churning the waters in the flow of communication. As people began to participate in the new digital frontier, a few key phenomena greatly contributed to the reinvention of brand as we know it today:

Brands adapted to the new age and followed consumers online, building digital experiences and blurring the line between “representation” and “reputation.”

People began to gain more access to information and to the brands themselves. The range of available choices grew.

The strengthening of consumer voices through social-media platforms ensured that end users of products had just as much control in shaping brands as companies did.

For the first time, consumers could crack open the brand’s carefully crafted narrative to engage in two-way dialogues, or even larger conversations with others, widening and reversing the flow of communication.

Defining Brand in the Age of Digital Experience

As brands adapted to the digital world and consumers gained access to information and became increasingly influential, the definition of brand evolved to represent a broader set of experiences across all channels.

Definition: Brand is a subjective perception of value based on the sum of a person’s experiences with a product or company that ultimately influences that person’s sentiment and decisions in the marketplace.

Brand is a tool for influencing choice. Brand is not made of visuals or words alone — it’s not a logo or a slogan. Nor is it a figurehead, such as Steve Jobs. Those things are simply ways to communicate the brand. Although a figurehead such as Elon Musk or a logo such as McDonald’s golden arches can and do serve to effectively deliver the brand message, ultimately, a brand is formulated through a larger set of experiences. Flipping the flow of information from one-way to two-way (as discussed above) results in flipping brand from being a message to being an experience.

Components of Brand: Visuals, Tone, and Actions

If brand is reliant upon a total set of experiences as discussed above, then what a company looks like, sounds like, and how it behaves are all equal components of brand in the eyes of a consumer. Therefore, people experience brand (and brand can be expressed) through three areas: visuals, tone, and behavior.

Visuals:

Visuals comprise the graphic elements used to communicate the brand, including the logo, typeface, images, and other elements of a common style guide.

Tone:

Tone is the style of communication the brand uses, from the text on a website to the messaging developed and used in targeted advertisements and to the manner in which staff speak to customers.

Behavior:

Behavior represents how the company acts in certain situations. Does the company reflect the morals and values of their customers? Do they actively express those values through their actions?

Components of Brand in the Real World: Southwest Airlines

To examine these components more closely, consider Southwest Airlines. This airline is recognized for its consistent and differentiated brand, which claims to put customers at the center of its business model. Southwest showcases this core brand message and its “love of People” through the brand visuals, tone and behavior.

For example, last year, Southwest launched a new look for the exterior of its planes, calling it a “bold new look that puts our heart front and center for everyone to see.” It extended its brand visuals to even the plane itself, putting the heart logo that represents its love for its customers on the belly of the plane. “It’s big and bold, but also authentic and welcoming,” says the campaign’s microsite.

Southwest’s new exterior design put the heart logo on the belly of the plane, to visually reinforce “love of People” as a core brand message.

Southwest also has a long-standing campaign called “Transfarency,” Southwest says, “Transfarency means we don’t dream up ways we can trick you into paying more. It’s why we still let two bags fly free, and don’t have change fees.” The tone of the campaign is authentic and suggests honesty in Southwest’s treatment of its customers and communication of fees. The campaign tone is straightforward and a little playful, matching its overall brand message.

Finally, Southwest is known for coaching employees to treat customers in a way that reflects its core brand message. “People are our most powerful fuel,” says a slogan. Brand behavior matches this promise. In one of the more touching customer stories, a Southwest pilot held a flight 12 minutes past the scheduled departure for a man who was attempting to see family after a tragic death. “They can’t go anywhere without me, and I wasn’t going anywhere without you,” the pilot is credited with saying.

The Relationship Between Brand and Digital User Experience

Why is it important to understand the components of brand, and to differentiate brand from its common misinterpretation as simply a logo, a figurehead, or a website, among other things? Only when all three brand components — visuals, tone, and behaviors — are present and true to the core brand message, do customers have a consistent user experience across interactions with a company or product.

Though interaction has always been important for forming customer impressions in service industries — customers would quit going to McDonalds if they were consistently treated rudely by staff no matter how highly they rate the fries — what’s new is that interaction and user experience have become the key elements in representing all brands. As all brands now have a digital presence, customers now have frequent interactive experiences with all categories of companies, no matter the industry.

In digital systems, customers interact with the representation of the brand in the form of websites and other interactive services, making behavior a crucial attribute of brand. The granularity of behavior as a brand attribute can and does vary and can be expressed holistically at the level of entire processes and interactions on a site, but also at a finer level, in the specific qualities of those interactions (e.g., transitions, animations).

UX Is a Brand Differentiator

Most people can’t differentiate how they feel about a brand from how they feel about the experiences they have with that brand, so in many situations, UX becomes the brand differentiator. It can be part of — or all of — the reason a customer chooses to engage with a company or its products.

In their definition of user experience, Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen claim that “the first requirement for an exemplary user experience is to meet the exact needs of the customer, without fuss or bother.” Brands that choose to address an unmet user need at the core of their business are regularly disrupting industries by focusing on UX and, specifically, on unmet user needs as brand differentiators—and succeeding in oversaturated markets by doing so. Examples are not hard to find: Uber, AirBnB, and Netflix are based on this philosophy.

More competition in the market (and greater user access to those competitors through digital avenues) means that it’s more important than ever to stand out. And in order to do so, the entire experience of interacting with a brand must deliver a consistently great user experience.

Learn more in our full day course Translating Brand into User Interactions.

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wineanddinosaur · 4 years ago

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Deathmatch Wrestling Was Bar Culture’s Newest, Bloodiest Frontier. Will it Ever Return?

Punk rockers have always had an affinity for pro wrestling, maybe because of the storylines: Stone Cold Steve Austin sticking it to billionaire World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) CEO Vince McMahon in a vicious rejection of oligarchical power (even if it was — and, it was — all part of a script). It could be that pro-wrestling’s spectacular violence is just plain fun, and a good excuse to drink.

But if regular pro wrestling is punk rock, then deathmatch wrestling is harsh noise. With a general disdain for human decency, and stripped of televised wrestling’s aesthetic concerns, deathmatch wrestling has recently seen unexpected resurgence in the United States — or at least, it had. Considering the devastation that Covid-19 brought to the indie wrestling world (and entertainment landscape writ large), fans are left wondering if deathmatch wrestling will ever return to punk bars across the U.S. and abroad.

Within the last decade, the emergent deathmatch wrestling scene has ditched the formalities (and legalities) of the professional wrestling industry by teaming up with local bars and holding full-fledged fights amidst the booze. Dropping the framing mechanisms of actual wrestling —the ring, the bell, the fabricated rules — these bar brawls and DIY deathmatches have found enthusiastic audiences looking for grittier experiences and more ferocious stories than what’s usually seen on TV.

LuFisto, one of the first female deathmatch pro wrestlers in the history of the sport, defined deathmatch pro-wrestling to me in March of 2019 as “a match where disqualifications, count-outs, and all other rules do not apply. … The only rule is that you need to pin or submit your opponent to win. There can also be a victory via KO or referee stoppage. The use of weapons is a must, and you will definitely see blood and several cuts. The bloodier, the better.”

Like in more above-ground pro wrestling, the outcome of a deathmatch is usually determined beforehand, as are some sequences of moves and stunts, or “spots,” in each match. Beyond that, the bloodthirsty wantonness of the fighters is largely unchecked, and the creativity of the brawls borders on the magically real. Any and all objects — bladed weapons, neon light tubes, kitchen appliances, barbed wire, broken beer bottles, dildos — are suddenly transformed into apparatuses of pain. However, as in more “legitimate” wrestling, deathmatch wrestlers still go out of their way to avoid “real” injuries, despite their sanguine proclivities.

‘Everybody Dies!’: Inclusivity in The Deathmatch Scene

It’s easy to assume that the participants in this bloodsport are mostly grisly, hyper-macho, white men with anger problems. This is simply far from the case. Having worked within the scene for a few years as a DJ and organizer, the feature of deathmatch wrestling that continues to surprise me the most is, ironically, its unending kindness. Despite or perhaps because of the inherent ultra-violence of the medium, deathmatch wrestlers are extremely attuned to the needs of their colleagues and audiences, and the crowds — many of whom are not even really casual wrestling fans — return the magnanimity with unbridled enthusiasm. The athletes invariably display unexpected sweetness the second the match ends.

“We get to smash each other but afterwards we buy each other a beer,” says Casanova Valentine, a Brooklyn-based pro wrestler widely credited for reinvigorating the indie deathmatch scene. We get our animalistic urges out but we’re still friends, and we still protect each other, and we’re having fun in a way that no one is actually getting hurt.”

With this in mind, it makes sense that deathmatch wrestling is often paired with a true commitment to inclusivity. While TV pro wrestling still has serious problems with regard to diverse representation, deathmatches tend to feature a colorful cast of characters from a plethora of backgrounds, along with exciting collaborations with other art forms also commonly perceived as lowbrow. The events that Valentine is often booked on have recently featured drag performances, fashion shows, noise art, queer DJs, sludge metal bands, and more — alongside a diverse roster of male, female, and non-binary brawlers. Everyone is encouraged to fight to the death.

This was something Valentine had consciously considered while creating his brand: “I guess a lot of people probably think [deathmatch wrestling] is like some white supremacist rally in a basement — but even though it’s the most violent thing in the world, I want it to be a safe space,” Valentine says, yelling, “like, can’t we all just have fun together?! I mean, f*ck!”

Not everyone is behind deathmatch wrestling. Older industry stalwarts who desperately fought to protect what’s known in the business as kayfabe — that is, the illusion of reality perpetuated by the wrestling industry — have repeatedly denounced deathmatch wrestling as a potentially industry-killing de-evolution of the sport. These staunch critics see deathmatch wrestling as the end of wrestling’s integrity, with the glory and glamour of yesteryear reduced to drunken bar fights. They also see deathmatch wrestling as a potentially injurious art form, considering the potentially life-threatening nature of these fights.

“Twenty years ago, we PRETENDED to hurt each other, and the fans believed it,” writes Jim Cornette, a former WWF personality and decision maker-turned-divisive critic. “Today, we REALLY DO hurt each other, and the fans think it’s fake. Who are the marks now?” (World Wrestling Federation, or WWF, was a precursor to what is now WWE.)

“Deathmatch wrestling is fairly liberal,” says Bam Sullivan, a New York-based pro wrestler. “It’s a new, progressive, exciting thing. It turns away the more conservative, elitist mentalities.”

“But I get where they’re coming from,” Sullivan continued. “They feel very protective. It all comes from our love of pro wrestling and they don’t want to see what they love so much become, in their view, desecrated. But if something’s making money and everyone’s happy then, I’m sorry, but just shut the f*ck up.”

Valentine disagrees: “The old-school wrestling people say it’s just violence for the sake of violence; they say there’s no craft or storytelling,” he says. “Personally, I think wrestling is a big enough spectrum that there’s something in wrestling for everyone, whether it’s comedy, or violence, or technical skill. I consider wrestling art, and that means it can be whatever I want it to be. There’s Jackson Pollock and there’s photorealism, you know?”

“Deathmatch wrestling shows how we all crave the element of danger, that thrill,” says Sullivan. “There’s some kind of car crash-eque appeal in deathmatch wrestling. … In the age of the Internet we get so bored and so jaded so easily by what we’re constantly looking at. It’s counter-cultural, the complete antithesis of what so many people had been watching on TV for so long.”

For Valentine, “It’s the lawlessness — I like the idea of escapism. For a moment, you’re not hearing about the news or the bullsh*t of politics. I guess it’s just taking a break from society and all its bullshit rules for 15 minutes. When you’re at the show, there’s no bullshit. There’s something very primitive and beautiful about watching two people fight. I don’t know why, it’s so therapeutic. ”

Deathmatch Wrestling: From Promising Beginnings to an Uncertain Future

Valentine began throwing a series of events in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg in 2016, catalyzing a reinvention of the deathmatch scene as it was known. He used the phrase “No Ring, No Rules,” which he would later go on to trademark. The first endeavor was actually framed as an art show titled “Deathmatch: A Tribute to Pro-Wrestling Tragedy,” and the exhibition included Valentine’s painted portraits of famous dead wrestlers, video compilations of real-life wrestling injuries, and a bar fight presented as a performance piece.

“It just ended up taking off! I started running at punk rock bars that I already had relationships with from working as a bouncer and being in nightlife,” Valentine says. “There was no overhead other than the weapons. … It’s more of a fun party with my talented buddies than a soulless cash grab.”

The reason he chose bars as his venues was simple: “The idea of doing them in bars was to bring wrestling to people where they already are,” says Valentine. “Doing these shows in brightly lit middle schools … it’s just not cool. And I wanted to make independent wrestling cool.”

What began as a handful of small-scale parties featuring live bands and bloody battles in dive bars became a widespread movement. Valentine has since helped to establish No Peace Underground, a small-scale deathmatch company in Orlando, Fla. Founders Ryan Fox and Jared Tawasha, two employees at a struggling venue called Back Booth (since renamed Soundbar) organized the brand’s first event in late 2017 as a last-ditch effort to save their jobs before the bar went out of business. Their first show was financially successful enough to keep the place afloat. The company has since evolved into a full-fledged deathmatch federation that has put on around 20 highly produced, scripted shows in three years.

“I had discussed the idea with some promoters about doing a wrestling show, but the owner wasn’t cool with it,” says Tawasha. “Fast-forward to a few months later: We’re coming up on Halloween and the owner is scrambling, so he says, ‘I don’t care what you do!’ Lo and behold, around 80 people showed up on a Monday night!”

Fox, his co-founder, adds: “It was Devil’s Night, I remember … the last night on the calendar to keep the bar open.”

Meanwhile, in North Dakota, Time Bomb Pro founder Eric Morrison was hatching a plan of his own. He held his first deathmatch show in October 2018. “I had been booking [hardcore punk shows] for quite a while,” Morrison recalls. “It was pretty easy to transfer that over to wrestling. It’s basically the same thing, just a slightly different product. It’s just out of control at this point. I never really expected it to move on past a couple [of] shows.”

Morrison’s most adventurous event, which went viral on wrestling Twitter, was called the Twink Gauntlet, in which openly gay fighter Effy battled an ornery mob of skinny boys until he was beaten by — wait for it — a bear mascot.

“My biggest struggle is finding places that are OK to host these kinds of events. It’s hard for me to tell people upfront, ‘People are going to be bleeding all over your bar,’ Morrison says. “The wrestling culture in North Dakota is basically non-existent. There’s maybe three independent promotions and it’s very family friendly, PG shows. So what I’m doing is really different.”

As businesses closed in March and country-wide lockdowns began, the indie wrestling world saw sweeping cancellations of almost all events, causing widespread devastation in the industry and leaving slews of performers without work. Although many parts of the U.S. remain in various stages of shutdown and reopening, we’re just now beginning to see the glimmers of a potential wrestling re-emergence. The speed at which events can restart remains a question, as concerns over a second wave of Covid remain very real — and the rules about how many people can be in certain places seem to be changing by the second.

In areas beginning the process of reopening, indie wrestling is starting to adapt, with first signs including drive-in wrestling events and low-capacity or empty arena events, which will later be streamed online. But the risks of wrestling itself are, of course, still there — forcing performers to get creative about the settings in which these productions can take place without causing harm.

At the moment, Morrison is scouting locations for outdoor deathmatch shows to be held in fall of 2020, although he’s keeping a close eye on how risky that might be. “If it doesn’t feel safe I won’t do it,” he says definitively. “Bars are reopening in North Dakota at 75 percent capacity, but I’m not exactly sure about the event regulations yet.”

Soundbar is currently listed as open, but amid recent reports of a spike in coronavirus cases in Florida, that status could change in a moment’s notice. Tawasha and Fox did not respond to requests for comments about the future of No Peace Underground.

Throughout the reporting of this piece, Valentine was on an international tour, producing and performing at deathmatch events in Australia and the United Kingdom. He had hoped to bring his brand of chaos into bars across the globe, but watched his matches and shows get cancelled, one by one — nearly 30 scheduled events were obliterated and plans to reschedule them remain unclear.

“For my No-Ring bar shows, I’m hoping to do them when it’s safe to do so,” Valentine says, adding that his goals include doing more shows in outdoor settings, having limited capacities, and “having everyone wear masks.” But, he adds, “my shows, they’re punk rock, so they still won’t be sanctioned.”

“Eventually, wrestling will be back to the way it was, but it’s going to be slow,” he adds. “It’s uncertain. We don’t really know. The fact of the matter is that in wrestling, you’re bleeding and sweating on someone, and it’s a major risk. This is all I’ve ever wanted to do my whole life, but I also want to have a life.”

The article Deathmatch Wrestling Was Bar Culture’s Newest, Bloodiest Frontier. Will it Ever Return? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/deathmatch-wrestling-bar-culture/

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isaiahrippinus · 4 years ago

Text

Deathmatch Wrestling Was Bar Culture’s Newest, Bloodiest Frontier. Will it Ever Return?

‘Everybody Dies!’: Inclusivity in The Deathmatch Scene

Deathmatch Wrestling: From Promising Beginnings to an Uncertain Future

Fox, his co-founder, adds: “It was Devil’s Night, I remember … the last night on the calendar to keep the bar open.”

The article Deathmatch Wrestling Was Bar Culture’s Newest, Bloodiest Frontier. Will it Ever Return? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/deathmatch-wrestling-bar-culture/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/622993852854321152

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johnboothus · 4 years ago

Text

Deathmatch Wrestling Was Bar Cultures Newest Bloodiest Frontier. Will it Ever Return?

‘Everybody Dies!’: Inclusivity in The Deathmatch Scene

Deathmatch Wrestling: From Promising Beginnings to an Uncertain Future

Fox, his co-founder, adds: “It was Devil’s Night, I remember … the last night on the calendar to keep the bar open.”

The article Deathmatch Wrestling Was Bar Culture’s Newest, Bloodiest Frontier. Will it Ever Return? appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/deathmatch-wrestling-bar-culture/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/deathmatch-wrestling-was-bar-cultures-newest-bloodiest-frontier-will-it-ever-return

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brentrogers · 5 years ago

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6 Unrealistic Relationship Expectations That Will Sabotage Your Love Life

Don’t let these expectations ruin what you have.

When we’re falling in love, we all have expectations and relationship goals.

Do you remember that falling in love feeling when hormones like oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin get flooded in your body and you feel like you’re walking on air and it feels amazing?

This feeling is so consuming and feels like it will last forever.

9 Steps to Setting and Reaching Relationship Goals

As a teenager, I expected that feeling of being in love to last a lifetime. When the reality of relationships and everyday life started to set in, I thought my husband didn’t love me anymore.

Did you ever feel like that? That is, waking up to the reality of what a relationship really is.

Some people might know this and might move from relationship to relationship, looking for this emotional high. It can be another form of addiction. It doesn’t mean the love will end but rather, it gets more stable, deeper, and more deliberate.

And if you want a healthy relationship that lasts a lifetime, you need to wake up these realities.

These days of social media, you think everyone is all polished and happy when you look at the pictures they are posting. The reality might be a different story altogether.

It is your appreciation that makes a relationship thrive, not your expectation of what it’s supposed to be.

If you find you’re always having relationship problems and issues that can’t seem to be resolved, maybe it is time to look at your expectations and see if they are in line with the reality in your relationship.

Here are 6 unrealistic expectations that can kill a relationship before it gets the chance to thrive.

1. You Must Be the Center of His Universe

When a man is pursuing a woman, he will put all his focus on winning her.

He will dine her, take her to the movies, go on hikes with her, or do whatever she wants to maintain closeness. Once he has achieved that objective, he moves on to other important things. For example, earning money to provide for her.

This is great for him but you might feel like he’s neglecting you or doesn’t care anymore. If you spend your time complaining to him about it, he will feel like you don’t appreciate him.

Can you see how this can be difficult? It is helpful to remember we all have obligations that we need to meet including other friends and family. All those people are important to enrich our lives.

Instead, find things that will occupy your time and drive your passion. That is just the reality of life.

While my husband was studying for a Ph.D. and I was studying for my Masters, we made a pact that Saturday was our day. We spent it together.

We did grocery shopping and ran all the errands we needed to run. We would also catch with each other about some of the things that happened during the week, plans, challenges, and everything we needed to say to each other.

This became our favorite time to be together — we valued it and used it wisely.

2. If He Loves You, He Should Be Able to Read Your Mind

I have heard this one from many different women and it’s a common thought in unhealthy relationships.

“If he can’t tell what I am thinking or how I am feeling, then he doesn’t love me.”

Can you see how crazy that sounds? Can you tell what your girlfriends or even your children are thinking? Don’t you love them?

Expecting him to read your mind is very unrealistic and very damaging to any relationship.

Communication is key, so get in the habit of asking for what you need. Explain in detail what that would look like and what that would mean to you if you could put it into words.

When I woke up to this reality, my marriage transformed from the brink of divorce to blissful connection.

If you love him, you should give him the opportunity to win with you. He can only do that if he knows what makes you happy and what is important to you.

The best way to be with each other is to be intentional and conscious as well as providing feedback so that he knows if he’s doing something right. This will make resentments fly out of your union.

3. You Agree With Each Other All the Time

The romantic expectation is that you will agree with each other all the time. As we have evolved to hate confrontation, we think if someone disagrees with us, we’re going to be ostracized.

The reality is we all have different backgrounds, beliefs, and weird thoughts and it’s okay if someone doesn’t agree with you.

I believe it is more loving to accept and appreciate a person who doesn’t agree with you than one who does because it is harder. You can agree to disagree and not feel you have to convince them otherwise.

There are couples who don’t see eye to eye on religion, family, political ideology, and even language. Yet, they agree that they want to be together and they have thrived.

They have given up the right to be right and the other to be wrong which is the reason why you want to be surrounded by people who agree with them all the time.

Please note, however, that it is not healthy to be around a person you disagree with on your fundamental values.

Knowing your values will help you choose what matters and what doesn’t and you can compromise on.

10 Things You Subconsciously Do as a Couple That Keep You From Being ‘Relationship Goals’

4. Your Relationship Will Be Easy

I wish someone had told me about the dynamics of change when I first got married.

Even though I loved my husband deeply, I resisted being with him so much. Anything he suggested, I considered to be wrong and, in the end, we were both miserable. I wanted to do things the way that was familiar with me.

His way just seemed weird and wrong. I never considered how doing things my way would feel for him.

Love alone doesn’t make a relationship easy. I expected it to ease the transition but it didn’t. I was so confused and I took it to mean it was my husband who didn’t love me enough or had stopped loving me.

Most people have no clue what happens after “I do” and that is the reason why I am a relationship coach. I wish someone would’ve held my hand and told me what to expect and what I could do to ease the strife.

Fortunately, we woke up to reality and started to communicate better.

Slowly, things started to get better and they transformed into something fantastic because we figured out that we had to choose how we wanted our communication, connection, and interaction to be.

5. He Should Change for You

This one is huge. Many men are afraid to commit because of the expectation for them to change that most women have.

My clients have this belief that men are just a misbehaving version of a woman. When I started doing research, I found that men and women are very different. The way we view the world and solve our problems is so different too.

Men carry most of their burdens alone and women always have a confidant or friends.

Did you know that expecting a man to change is disrespecting who he is? I am not saying some men won’t change for a woman. The truth is, he only changes if he wants to change.

Do you agree that it is not fair to expect anyone to change who they are for you?

The reality is, many people don’t change. It takes a lot of patience and work to change lifetime habits. If you meet a person who has qualities you don’t like, don’t settle.

Instead, find someone else whose values align with yours. Did you know that if you accept a man for who he is, he will treasure you forever?

6. He Will Take Care of Your Financial Needs

I think I might cause some controversy with this one but we can agree to disagree.

Many women were raised to think a man will come from somewhere and provide them with financial security she can’t provide for herself.

My dad told me that I should always have my own money. He said the reality is that a man can leave you, die, or not be able to provide financial security for you. I took this to heart and I believe true freedom for women can only be attained when she has her own money.

To me, that is reality.

These days some women work in jobs that enable them to earn much more than the man. This should be okay.

If you have this expectation, you might stop respecting your man because he earns less or he might stop respecting himself. Once he doesn’t value himself then he can’t love you.

This expectation has caused so much pain to so many couples but it shouldn’t be like that at all.

Healthy relationships are not always perfect. But, once you stop expecting these 6 things, you increase the chances of your relationship lasting and thriving for the years to come.

This guest article was originally published on YourTango.com: 6 Unrealistic Relationship Goals You Have That Are Low-Key Killing Your Love Life.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash.

6 Unrealistic Relationship Expectations That Will Sabotage Your Love Life syndicated from

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click2watch · 6 years ago

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The True Crypto Alternative to Government Money

Evan Kuo is the co-founder of Ampleforth (formerly Fragments), a startup developing advanced technological solutions for the stablecoin market, and the former founder of on-demand delivery startup Pythagoras Pizza. The following is an exclusive contribution to CoinDesk’s 2018 Year in Review.

“I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government. That is, we can’t take them violently out of the hands of government. All we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop.” – Friedrich Hayek

In 1976, the Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek authored an important and prescient paper titled: “The Denationalization of Money.” Bitcoin proponents love and often quote this work as the rationale for why Bitcoin needs to exist, but Hayek’s original vision looks less like today’s Bitcoin, and more like today’s stablecoins.

Hayek painted the picture of a world where money, like banking, is denationalized. He believed that unlike law and language, money had not been allowed to evolve due to sovereign influences suppressing competition. And he predicted that if governments were to allow for it, currencies would naturally evolve to compete on increased stability, eventually eliminating the devaluing effects of inflation altogether.

A bold claim, paired with a simple two-pronged approach:

Open the free trade of money

Allow the issuance of independent money.

At the time of publication, it would have been nearly impossible to imagine either of these taking place. Still, Hayek wrote with the hope that some perfect storm of circumstances might someday change the game, even going so far as to suggest that the change may need to happen without government support.

Today, more than 40 years after the idea’s inception, we see the denationalization of money unfolding organically in the form of digital assets.

A Sly Roundabout Way

The Bitcoin protocol can certainly be described as a “sly roundabout way” of introducing an independent money that no central authority can stop. In a stroke of genius, Bitcoin’s creators traded technical scalability for social scalability. And in this sense, Bitcoin’s approach toward decentralized money was precisely the workaround that Hayek asked for.

However, this is where the analogy connecting Bitcoin with Hayek’s fictional currency the ducat, diverges.

Hayek explicitly opposed the notion of a fixed supply currency. Possessing full knowledge of the economic history behind scarce metals and fresh off the collapse of Bretton Woods, he knew with certainty that fixed supply was not the solution he sought.

Like scarce metals, fixed supply assets cannot respond to changes in demand, and will never achieve the sustainable level of near-term price stability needed to compete with central bank money.

Fortunately, with Bitcoin’s ideals amplified by extreme speculative interest, the protocol succeeded in drawing a critical mass of attention to the inefficiencies of existing monetary and banking systems. And more importantly, Bitcoin instilled in a new generation of innovators the idea that money is something we can change.

The vast majority of stablecoins we see today are fiat collateralized. Back in 2015, unbanked cryptocurrency exchanges needed a fiat pegged token so that traders could move in and out of speculative positions on floating price assets like Bitcoin. Many of these exchanges existed outside the U.S. and lacked direct banking relationships.

Tether rose to fill this pressing need, collateralizing 1 U.S. dollar for every USDT token minted and forming partnerships with all major exchanges. This meant that whether you were a U.S. citizen or not, you could buy and sell a tokenized representation of the US dollar without restriction. Effectively, Tether opened up the free trade of sovereign money, unlocking the first phase of Hayek’s vision – what he referred to as the “practical” approach to denationalization.

Since then, much has been written about Tether’s controversy and it suffices to say that its near monopoly, lack of transparency, and reliance on centralized banking partners predisposed it to allegations of abuse.

Hayek believed that opening the free trade of money would lift the floor of monetary quality by placing pressure on weak currencies to execute monetary policy at the level of their best sovereign peers. For example, if citizens of Venezuela or Argentina could simply buy in and out of U.S. dollars, there would be no excuse for extended abuses of monetary policy.

And it’s fitting that in an environment of open competition, the digital asset market’s natural tendency was to diversify away from Tether through competition. Recently, a number of fiat collateralized alternatives have entered the stage including Paxos Standard Token (PAX), Gemini Dollar (GUSD), TrueUsd (TUSD) and Circle’s CENTRE consortium (USD-C).

These new entrants are rapidly gaining traction, pressuring older players to improve their accounting practices and provide redeemability, or face extinction. Hayek could not have asked for a better demonstration of the benefits of open competition.

However, because these tokens are centralized their use is highly permissioned. At any point a banking partner can be restricted, forcing tokens to evade authority or cease operation. Moreover, the continued adoption of fiat collateralized stablecoins simply advances the dominance of existing sovereign currencies.

Algorithmic Stablecoins Issue Independent Money

Hayek also believed that the introduction of independent money would raise the ceiling of monetary quality by placing pressure on the best sovereign currencies to be more responsible with their issuance and regulation of supply. He called this second phase the “generalized” approach to denationalization.

Considerably fewer stablecoins can be called independent monies. Nevertheless, this is where we place the greatest hope for the future of digital assets; and correspondingly, this is where the most venture capital has been committed. MakerDao, Reserve, Ampleforth, and until recently, Basis, are examples of stablecoin projects that fall into this category.

Like Bitcoin, algorithmic stablecoins are designed to be market driven, resistant to regulation, and have strictly enforced supply policies that cannot be compelled by central authorities to change. With one major difference. Unlike Bitcoin they will be functional units of account, allowing them to compete with sovereign currencies on stability.

Lacking military and government mandates, independent monies can only exist if they are better at issuing and regulating supply than existing alternatives. If an independent cryptocurrency was fairer or more stable than existing currencies, knowledge of this would pressure even the best central banks to execute better monetary policy.

Today, some 60 percent of foreign reserves are already held in U.S. dollars or Treasury bonds; and many people including the IMF consider it a social responsibility to avoid creating a world that is excessively reliant on the US dollar for global economic affairs.

Moreover, the interconnectedness of today’s global economy along with the United States’ obligation to engage in cycles of continuous deficit spending (eg: The Triffin Dilemma) contributes to increasingly large boom and bust cycles that quickly translate domestic economic crises into global economic crises.

It is the dissatisfaction with these cycles, the realization that such cycles can grind the banking system of even the world’s most powerful economy to a halt, that spurred the cryptocurrency movement during the last global financial crisis. As a community, we shouldn’t lose sight of this vision.

Looking Ahead to 2019

It will be a long time before algorithmic stablecoins are used on exchanges the way fiat collateralized coins are used today. Algorithmic stablecoins have the potential to profoundly transform money as we know it, but they are much harder to pull off and introduce risks that can only diminish with time and scale.

For this reason, expect that in the near-term fiat collateralized stablecoins will continue to dominate the base trading pair use case on exchanges, and their success will be driven by enterprise relationships with regulators and exchanges, rather than community or ideology.

To gain adoption, digitally native stablecoins will need incentives beyond base trading pair utility to compensate for their increased risks. These incentives could be greater stability, a better philosophical underpinning, or game-theoretic incentives aligned with network growth.

Ultimately, only algorithmic stablecoins can further the underlying mission of digital currencies and emerge as true alternatives to government money. Hayek would have asked for not one, but many concurrent denationalized currencies to prove their worth.

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