#take them down

[spookysalem13]

We have to do something about the Restrict Act, it's so much more than a ban on tiktok. Every action helps to put an end to the restrict act. The people need to come together and show them that we don't approve of what they're doing.

[yourivygrows13]

Ticketmaster, Monopolies, and why The Eras Tour shitshow is not Taylor's fault, but Ronald Reagan's

Alright tumblr. I'm not an economist, but I took IB Econ SL in High School and still talk to my teacher so I'm enough of one for tumblr. I also have ADHD, and my hyperfocus loves to research, and I have been an obsessive music fan since birth and have been going to concerts regularly since my dad deemed me old enough to sit through one. I've also worked in radio for many years and I'm a music journalist. There are my credentials.

So strap in and let's discuss what the fuck is happening right now with Ticketmaster, The Eras Tour, and the outrage. This is gonna be a long one.

Ticketmaster as it stands now is the result of a merger (With Live Nation) that shouldn't have happened and is a capitalistic monster that needs to be taken down. Full stop. So why did Taylor Swift choose to use them for her tour? The simple answer is she had no choice if she wanted to tour venues that could adequately meet the demand she generates. Ticketmaster has such a chokehold on the ticketing industry, that venues are incentivized to use them as their ticketing service because Ticketmaster sells the most tickets. Yes, venues can use other services or even their own, but a massive stadium probably doesn't have the developers and engineers needed to handle events with 60k+ capacities. Pre-merger with Live Nation, these larger venues had more options. But since the merger in 2010, there is not a single ticketing service that can touch Ticketmaster. When Taylor is planning a tour, she and her event promoter (AEG) have control over some things like stage design and ticket prices (which, the face value of the tickets for The Eras Tour was very reasonable BEFORE FEES and BEFORE DYNAMIC PRICING. When you take into account just how much putting a tour on costs just in the sheer amount of people you have to employ $899 for the most expensive VIP level ticket is a lot of money, but it's 2022 and there is serious inflation going on. Taylor doesn't control the entire global economy. Dynamic pricing shouldn't be allowed in my opinion and artists should not opt in for it in my opinion. I have no idea what logistics go into opting out and I'm sure Ticketmaster does everything they can to incentivize people not to. But yes, as far as I am aware, dynamic pricing is a choice artists make so if Taylor had dynamic pricing, that was a decision made internally. I can't say I would make the same choice, but I'm not a touring musician. Also, I say IF she had, because in my experience of trying to buy tickets for this tour my friends and I did not encounter any dynamic price shifts for any of the shows we attempted to get tickets for.) She and her event promoters do not have a say in who sells the tickets. That is decided by the venue. Taylor is at the point in her career where she can't not play stadiums. There is just too much demand. For example, she's playing three dates at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. On her reputation tour she played to a total (across 2 nights) of 107,378 people. (Her stage for The Eras Tour is much bigger than the rep stage, so that capacity goes down a bit). But using that as a number: For The Eras Tour, by selling out 3 dates she'd play for roughly161,067 people. If she were to play Wells Fargo Center (the arena in Philadelphia. She started playing stadiums during speak now. She hasn't played places this small in the US in YEARS) she'd have to play 7.5 shows in Philly alone to play to the same number of people.

And most arenas still use Ticketmaster. But you get my point. She would have to basically never stop touring if she wanted to play for the same number of people on a stadium tour, in smaller venues. Using Philadelphia as an example, as that's a mid tier venue for her capacity wise: To play to roughly the same amount of people on The Eras Tour if she did arenas instead of stadiums she'd have to play 390 shows in the United States alone. She's incredible, but that's unreasonable to ask of ANYONE. She has to sell her tickets through whatever service the venues use. The vast majority of NFL stadiums use Ticketmaster. Her hands are tied. Could she straight up not tour? Yes. But if you actually expect her to do that, or any artist for that matter, you need to lower your expectations. It's her job. That argument is going to get people nowhere. We live in a capitalist society. That needs fixing before we can expect people to operate outside of it. So. Anyway. Why can any of this bullshit happen at all? Great. Fucking. Question. In the 1890s, The Sherman Act was put into place to essentially keep big corporations from gaining a monopoly over the market. It was decided that for everyone's best interest, we needed policies in place that would keep prices as low as possible by fostering healthy competition. Yes, this largely concerned things like oil and other big shit that controls our society. It all goes back to that shit. There have been other acts as well, btw. But for the sake of tumblr I'm sticking with a high level overview.

Fun fact: At the time, and into the "Golden Age" of antitrust policy (the 1940s to late 1970s), keeping competition in the market was seen as a remedy for fascism, and antitrust laws enabled that remedy. Antitrust policies started to fall in the late 1970s. Another fun fact: Ticketmaster started in 1976. I have no proof to back this being more than a coincidence, but do with that information what you will. In the late 70s, the Chicago School of Economics(/Antitrust Laws) began to popularize the idea that courts weren't super efficient at regulating these things and that inefficiency was holding us back and bigger wasn't necessarily bad. I'm simplifying. But that's it in a nutshell. Their school of thought became known as the "consumer welfare standard." If the whole purpose of antitrust policy was to keep prices low--which, at the time, was seen to equate maximum output, efficient allocation of resources, and thriving competition--then why did that mean that every single move that increased the price of goods had to be deemed unlawful if markets could self-correct? Which is how the Chicago School viewed them.

So in their eyes, only the most outrageous monopolies and forms of "anti-competitive conduct," basically anything that would keep markets from self-correcting, needed to be regulated. Their thinking was that some large mergers would indeed result in lower prices and efficient allocation of resources, and blocking everything was actually hindering that. Reagan was super on board with this, and his administration did a lot to reduce government regulation in business affairs. Now, the US presidents following Reagan didn't do much, if anything at all, to revert the changes that happened during this administration. And guess what? Markets do self-correct, but if a monopoly is big enough and if enough are allowed to happen, the market can't self-correct. Look at Ticketmaster/Live Nation. They are so large and control so much of the live events industry from owning venues to intense contracts that eat up entire cities, that there is literally nothing that can become enough of a competitor to correct the market to any level of "consumer welfare standard." Live Nation/Ticketmaster has absolutely zero incentive to do anything to improve customer experience, lower prices, loosen contracts, or put any measures in place to stop scalpers. Literally zero. Because no matter what, at the end of the day, if artists want to tour and if sports teams want to play and the general public wants to experience a live event of any kind in the United States, it is almost impossible to do so without involving LN/TM. There isn't an artist in this world big enough to take them down. Taylor Swift has a massive platform and a lot of influence. She cannot do anything about this alone. BTS don't have enough power to make a difference to an American based company. The Department of Justice and demanding governing officials and legislators to investigate and break up Ticketmaster is the only way this will ever change.

What the Reagan administration did in the 70s and what US Presidents have continued to do since, makes blocking these mergers from happening extremely difficult and not worth the time and energy. The fact that the Penguin Random House/Simon & Schuster merger was blocked is a miracle (and the Penguin/Random House merger should have never been allowed to happen!! The Kroger/Albertson's merger shouldn't have happened!!) So breaking up an already existing merger that created an unstoppable monopoly? That's even more impossible. So where does that leave us? Well, tired. Upset. Wondering how the hell Ticketmaster could just cancel the general on-sale for The Eras Tour when they explicitly state that there are still tickets left. But we can do something about it. Sign petitions. Call local legislators. Back the Tennessee District Attorney looking into it. Back AOC if she makes moves to do something about it. Our world is completely different than it was in the 1890s when The Sherman Act was put into place. It's completely different than it was in the Reagan Administration. It may seem silly to put effort into something like this when there are so many other things we have to fight for as well. But fighting for monopolies to be broken and blocked and fighting for antitrust policies to actually be upheld in ways that benefit TODAY'S society is important. You can be mad. You can scream. But at the end of the day, directing that anger and energy toward anyone but Live Nation/Ticketmaster isn't going to do anything. Let's fucking take down The Man. Resources if you want to learn more: Federal Trade Commission Department of Justice WP Article LA Times article from 1986 when shit was happening Rolling Stone article from 1995 about Pearl Jam's fight against Ticketmaster

[themaindragthings]

We never got those videos for Love During Wartime and Take Them Down, did we?

[swan2swan]

Whoever conceived and animated this moment, I hope they're doing well and thriving. This is S-rank romance stuff here.

[dispatchesfromtheclasswar]

[buckysdollforlife]

This blog is stealing @pellucid-constellations fics and is refusing to take them down. This is just so fucking wrong and this person needs to take them down. Report them immediately!!!!!!

STEALING SOMEONE ELSE’S FICS JUST TO MAKE THEM YOUR OWN MAKES YOU A SHITTY PERSON.

[myrkulitescourge]

the way that one line from the new epilogue in an astarion romance is going to HAUNT me

just. what a profoundly intense thing to confess to someone.

like, just these six months of newfound happiness with you exerts a force on his heart equal and in direct opposition to two centuries of endless torment, the gnawing hunger and exploitation. this flashbulb-bright fraction of his long life holds the same gravity to him as years upon years of darkness and suffering.

in all likelihood, he hasn’t even known his lover for as long as his worst memory lasted, that year sealed away to go mad from starvation and sensory deprivation, yet he still tells them this brief time has been so fundamentally and powerfully important that the weight of even that unimaginable hell is vanishingly small compared to this present he has now and the future ahead of them both.

how am i supposed to act normal about this.

[egophiliac]

don't think I'm not still deep in the episode 7 brainrot. because OH BOY AM I

(also one more extremely, obnoxiously self-referential thing, I'm -- I'm so sorry)

[katsinspats]

Thematically appropriate comic for Make a Terrible Comic Day!!

I saw the original post this morning and it made me get out of bed to make something, so thank u Pseudonym Jones mission accomplished

[starjunkyard]

Obsessed with the degrees to which james wilson is a messy bitch. Primps and preens himself whenever he realises his boy best friend is stalking / sabotaging / psychological-warfare-ing him. Slept with his terminal patient. Immedicable people pleaser. Chronic adulterer. Three ex wives. PROPOSED TO HIS GIRLFRIEND AT SOMEONE ELSE'S WEDDING? Fuck you doin in the oncology wing my boy. Psychiatric ward is on the left corner

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 113

“I seem to have been taken hostage.” Batman’s words almost had Superman panic if not for the wry tone, a tone which the others didn’t know if their freaking out was to go by. Clark sighed through the comms, tired after battle and honestly wanting to go to bed now.

“I’ll be right over, what child has latched onto you now?” He asked while switching to a more private channel. 

“I can already hear you making fun of me…” Wha- Oh. Clark bit his lip to keep himself from laughing as he took to the air. “They appear to be a pair of twins with…” 

“You gotta’ say it Bruce, you gotta’,” Clark couldn’t stop the chuckle when he saw his friend on the top of a building, cape curled around his form in a way usually reserved for the robins. 

“... with dark hair… and blue eyes…” That was it. Clark absolutely lost it in laughter. 

[lgbtlunaverse]

"Marcille hates all of Laios' freak traits but loves them in Falin" is honestly a really good joke but... you guys do know it's a joke right?

It's such a funny one I honestly find it impossible to get mad at even when people mistake it for an actual truth about the characters but JUST TO MAKE IT CLEAR

THIS is how marcille reacts when Falin is predictably just as enthusiastic about eating monsters as her brother was.

That is not the face of a woman who thinks this trait is lovely and endearing as long as it's exhibited by the girl she loves. That is the face of a woman who is taking 7d8 psychic damage and yet knows deep in her heart she won't like Falin any less for it.

The way young Marcille reacts to Falin eating berries Marcille can't recognize but Falin knows are safe is pretty similar to how she reacts to eating monsters years later, albeit with more fear than disgust. The difference in her relationships with Laios and Falin isn't just that she's attracted to Falin, it's because the Touden siblings, while similar, are in fact different people. Not just genderswaps of each other.

Also, I think you all already know this, but just to say it: she doesn't actually hate Laios for any of his freak tendencies either. He's one of her best friends. She's just a lot quicker to be outwardly exasperated with him while she's quieter about it with Falin.

[mobius-m-mobius]

Sometimes our emotions get the better of us. You can say that again.

[reineydraws]

i googled twin tshirts for these clowns' birthday and found a funny set 😂

sending a good hbd to my fave fictional twins 🎂🎂🎂

[themaindragthings]

Have you found everything you thought you lost?

The Main Drag, “Take Them Down”

[hailsatanacab]

A Persuasive Argument - dpxdc

"Great!" Danny says, clapping his hands together to get everyone's attention. The dinner table falls silent as everyone looks towards him. It's a full house today and, honestly, Danny's a little nervous. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I gathered you here today."

"It's dinnertime. In our house." Duke mutters, while doing a very bad job of concealing his yawn. He holds his fork poised over the braised beef, but, just like everyone else, still looks towards Danny before tucking in. It's intriguing enough to wait.

"Yeah, no one misses Alfie's dinner." Dick says, with a brilliant smile that Danny can't help but return.

"Precisely! What better time to talk to you all than when you're all actually here!"

"Wait, I thought you came round to work on our English essays?" Tim asks, blinking owlishly.

"I'm afraid I've lured you here under false pretences, Tim."

"This is where I live."

"I would still really appreciate help on that essay though, I mean, what the hell is Hamlet even about? I just don't get that old time-y language, like 'Hark! A ghost hath killed me!' - absolute rubbish, what does that even mean?"

"The ghost never kills anyone in Hamlet, he's there to tell Hamlet that he was murdered. Have you actually read it?"

"No, but it sounds like you have. Tim, I want this guy to help me with my essay instead. I know for a fact that you haven't read Hamlet, either."

"So? We don't need Jason, I've read the Sparknotes."

"Hi Jason, I'm Danny, pleasure to meet you, summarise Hamlet in three sentences or less."

"Am I auditioning to help you write your essays? I can't believe you’ve gone through your whole school life without reading it, it’s good!"

"Hamlet, along with a number of other classics, was banned in our house because it portrayed ghosts as intelligent and sympathetic beings rather than evil, animalistic beasts. I didn’t even get to see The Muppet's Christmas Carol until last year with Tim! It was surprisingly good, and I hate Christmas because everyone always argued and it sucked. But we're getting off topic. I—"

"No, no, please go back to that, because what the fu—"

"Boys, please." Bruce interrupts, looking to the world as if he wants to hang his head in his hands. "Danny, you were about to say something?"

"Oh, yeah, Mr. Wayne! Thanks!"

"Please, call me Bruce."

"Well, that very succinctly brings me to my point, because I'd actually really like to call you dad."

Nobody says a word. Nobody even blinks, all as shocked as the other, watching open-mouthed as Danny pulls his laptop out from beside his chair. Bruce can definitely feel a headache coming on.

"Before you say anything, I've prepared a 69 slide PowerPoint presentation on why you, Bruce Wayne, should adopt me, Danny Last-Name-Pending. Please save your questions, comments, and verdict until the end, thank you."