#the series is over 20 years old out of publication and is only sold online and is not advertised

[lovelesswiki]

Thoughts on the Negative Legend YouTube vids on the series?

if you want me to be completely honest, i have way too much shit going on in my real life to have the time or energy to watch someone tear apart a 20 year old series i genuinely enjoy and i will not be touching them with a 10 foot pole

[i-am-very-very-tired]

27 Best Things To Do in Los Angeles

HOW WE RANK THINGS TO DOLos Angeles has an exhaustive array of things to do. If you're a film buff, vintage Hollywood is a must-see. Some classic attractions in the area include TCL Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and Paramount Pictures Studios, the only television and film studio left in Hollywood. For a taste of stardom, window-shop along Rodeo Drive or cruise Sunset Boulevard. There are also a plethora of shorelines to choose from, including Venice Beach, Zuma Beach and the Santa Monica Pier and Beach. Arts lovers will want to see a show at Walt Disney Concert Hall or swing by Los Angeles County Museum of Art to admire its collection. If you aren't sure where to start, a daylong guided tour of the city is a great way to orient yourself. And after exploring all LA has to offer, consider taking a daytrip south to Anaheim-Disneyland. Griffith Observatory and Griffith Park Griffith Observatory sits on the south face of Mount Hollywood and overlooks the Los Angeles basin. Its location gives visitors impressive views of the surrounding area, which many rave about. But there's more than just a pretty photo-op here. The observatory hosts fascinating exhibitions and features a top-notch planetarium.Most recent visitors cited the beautiful setting as Griffith Observatory's main draw, though the free entry was certainly a bonus. However, you will have to pay between $3 and $7 to see the planetarium shows. Griffith Observatory is open from noon to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, with extended hours on weekends. Free but limited parking is available along the winding roads leading up to the property, or visitors can park in the small lot by the observatory for $10 per hour. A gift shop and cafe can be found on-site as well. For more information, check out Griffith Observatory's website. The Getty Center The Getty Center is one of the most impressive architectural achievements in the United States – and it also contains some of the finest works of art in the world. The circular concrete-and-steel structure was designed by renowned architect Richard Meier, and it houses an abundance of art from various ages and nations. Here you'll find Renaissance paintings, 20th-century American photography, Baroque sculptures, historic manuscripts and more, all housed inside a sprawling, modern campus amid the Santa Monica Mountains. The museum also offers spectacular views of Los Angeles on clear days.Recent travelers loved the museum for its value and beauty, highlighting the contrast between the art center's subtle refinement and the over-the-top glitz of Hollywood. Many visitors suggest taking a guided tour, noting that the tour highlights interesting parts of the museum they wouldn't have stumbled upon on their own. Tours of the Getty Center's architecture and gardens are available, as well as a Collection Highlights tour and tours of art in specific eras. Tour times and days vary depending on tour type. Check the Getty Center's website for a complete calendar. Santa Monica Pier and Beach Just west of downtown Los Angeles, Santa Monica contains one of the most legendary beach scenes in the United States. Santa Monica also boasts an abundance of great restaurants and excellent nightlife spots. The 3 miles of shoreline are renowned as some of the best in the area thanks to the soft sands, ideal weather and bevy of attractions. "State Beach," as it's known, has over 200 days of sunshine a year and acted as the backdrop for the popular television series "Baywatch."Santa Monica is a very walkable part of town, and many recent travelers suggest you explore the area by bicycle. Many visitors say the pier is a must-visit spot and fun to see. One of the most scenic rides is along the 22-mile bike path, known as The Strand, which runs parallel to the Pacific Ocean and takes riders through Marina del Rey and Playa del Rey along with Venice, Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo beaches. Travelers also recommend riding the Ferris wheel at the pier and people-watching at the Third Street Promenade. Hollywood Walk of Fame and TCL

Chinese Theatre One of Hollywood's most iconic and memorable sites, the TCL Chinese Theatre (originally Grauman's Chinese Theatre) opened in 1927 and represents the excess of Hollywood's Golden Age. You can tour the theater for $18 (kids tour tickets cost $8 and senior tickets are $14 each); tours are offered from 10:15 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day except Monday. Because of this attraction's popularity, it's best to reserve your spot online in advance. This working theater also shows various newly released films throughout the year.Overall, previous travelers said the tour guides' passion for the subject was evident, making their experiences special. However, some wished the area offered a glitzier atmosphere and others complained the tour was overpriced for what you got. Parking can also be challenging to find in Hollywood. Additional information about the attraction's tours and movie showtimes can be found on the TCL Chinese Theatre website. Zuma Beach Malibu has a reputation for excessive wealth and exclusivity, yet all of the town's beaches are public – everyone's welcome. If you're seeking an LA beach spot for sunbathing and swimming, look no further than this part of town. This 1.8-mile beach is far cleaner than those at Santa Monica or Venice Beach.Malibu's Zuma Beach is considered one of the finest beaches in the Los Angeles area. Locals and tourists laud Zuma for its awesome waves, ample parking and easy access to beachside snacks. Plus, there are a plethora of lifeguard stations and bathroom facilities. The Original Farmers Market and The Grove Sitting south of West Hollywood is one of LA's most beloved landmarks: The Original Farmers Market. Founded in 1934, this cream-colored facility reels in both residents and tourists with the promise of fresh produce and the aroma of ready-to-eat snacks. You can visit throughout the week, although hours vary depending on the day. Entry is free, but you'll want to have some cash on hand should any of the treats whet your appetite. You can park for free for up to 90 minutes at the market's two lots, provided that your ticket is validated at the market. (Fees apply for parking after the allotted 90 minutes and for nonvalidated tickets.) For a little help navigating the market, you can also take a guided foodie tour.Though some previous visitors wished this market had more produce and meat stalls, most appreciated the tasty dishes sold by many of the prepared food vendors and many call it a must-see spot. But keep in mind that this market is often crowded and has limited tables, so expect to eat outside the market area or wait for a table to become available. Find out more by visiting the market's website. Sunset Boulevard One of the most iconic thoroughfares in the United States, Sunset Boulevard continues to live up to its legends. In the old days, it represented the classic and glamorous Hollywood lifestyle and became the setting of several famous films, including the obvious classic "Sunset Boulevard." Today, the palm-lined street (which connects downtown LA to Hollywood, Beverly Hills and the Pacific Coast Highway) retains its cinematic appeal, and the Sunset Strip portion has become a popular nightlife spot. The strip is also home to many classic music venues, including the Rainbow Bar & Grill and The Roxy Theatre.Recent visitors loved driving along this famous boulevard, adding that gorgeous sunsets can be enjoyed during late afternoon drives. But like other parts of LA, this thoroughfare gets congested once rush hour hits, so plan accordingly. Los Angeles County Museum of Art Next door to the La Brea Tar Pits sits the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the linchpin of the Los Angeles museum district. Since its 1965 opening, LACMA has showcased thousands of pieces, from Islamic artifacts to European impressionist paintings to modern art. With constantly shifting exhibitions and unique architecture stretched across more than 20 acres of land, LACMA offers a rewarding experience for both serious art buffs and casual travelers.Currently, the museum is

preparing for the construction of a new building for its permanent collection, called the David Geffen Galleries, which is scheduled to open in 2024. For now, pieces will be on display in the BCAM and the Resnick Pavilion. The Urban Light and Levitated Mass exhibits remain open to visitors. There are three eateries on-site. While travelers commend the food, they note the restaurants are a bit pricey. Many visitors say the artwork on display is stunning, but several lament that much of the art is off exhibit because of the construction.

The Broad Philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad founded this museum in 2015 and the structure made for a stunning addition to downtown Los Angeles. The eye-catching, honeycomb building, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler, is home to an expansive collection of contemporary art dating from the 1950s to the present. The collection includes works by Jean Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Kara Walker and Andy Warhol. In addition to the permanent collection, temporary exhibits showcase new and emerging artists. The museum gets high marks from recent visitors who loved both the artwork and the architecture.Admission to the museum is free (though some special exhibits may have a fee). For guaranteed entry, you can book timed tickets in advance. The museum is open Tuesday and Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday and Friday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Parking costs $15 for three hours with museum validation, and $5 for each additional 15 minutes, with a $25 daily maximum. It is $15 after 5 p.m. on weeknights and all day on weekends. The closest Metro line stop is the Civic Center/Grand Park Station. Visit the museum's website for more information. Runyon Canyon Park Just two blocks from Hollywood Boulevard, Runyon Canyon Park is an often-overlooked urban park that offers some great views. The park boasts several hiking trails and is a popular spot for celebrities to exercise. During your hike, you'll see plenty of palm trees. Atop the canyon, you'll be treated to sweeping views of the San Fernando Valley.Travelers say that the canyon is reminiscent of Old Hollywood with several old mansions and estates scattered throughout the park – keep your eyes peeled as you follow the trail. Because of the hot, dry climate, the hike can be rough (even for those in great physical condition), so bring plenty of water. Some recent visitors lamented the lack of facilities, while others raved about the views. Paramount Pictures Studios Since the 1910s, Paramount has showcased the talents of film's all-time heavyweights, including Meryl Streep and Morgan Freeman. The notable site has been home to everything from classic television shows like "I Love Lucy" to modern favorites like Amazon Prime's "Jack Ryan" to box-office hits like "Mission: Impossible" and "Titanic." Today, Paramount Pictures is the only remaining film studio in the Hollywood area.For an authentic Hollywood experience, set aside some time to tour the grounds. On the two-hour studio tour, a guide will take you around the site's 65 acres in a golf cart, and you'll also be able to hop off and explore sound stages and recognizable studio sets from many current TV shows and movies. Previous visitors praised the friendly and knowledgeable tour guides, although some felt the tours offered at Warner Bros. Studio were better. Also, keep in mind the tours' age restrictions. Studio and VIP tours permit visitors ages 10 and older, while the seasonal After Dark tours only welcome travelers 16 and older. Rodeo Drive Immortalized by Julia Roberts' "Pretty Woman" shopping spree, Rodeo Drive is an upscale shopping street in Beverly Hills that features designer stores and small private boutiques. The area is popular with wealthy shoppers, sunglass-wearing celebrities and tourists hoping to see fashion icons.Don't be afraid to browse. Most shop owners are used to sightseers walking the area with little intent to purchase anything. That said, many recent visitors cautioned that some stores require appointments for entry and are generally off limits to tourists. Others said the thoroughfare can be a bit boring if you don't plan on shopping, although past travelers with a passion for cars enjoyed looking for expensive vehicles parked along Rodeo Drive's curb. Hollywood Bowl If you can catch a gig at the Hollywood Bowl, LA's beautiful outdoor amphitheater, don't pass it up. Since its inaugural season in 1922, this unique stage, set in the Hollywood Hills, has entertained thousands

of fans and hosted some of the biggest names in music, including The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Elton John and Tina Turner.Many travelers praise the Hollywood Bowl, touting everything from the sound quality to the scenic overlook. Several also add that all of the seats offer great views and suggest arriving early with a bottle of wine and a picnic basket.

Venice Beach Developed in the early 20th century, Venice Beach is modeled – canals and all – after its namesake city in Italy. Admittedly, the experiment didn't live up to its Italian inspiration, but the neighborhood has become distinctly Californian, embodying the spirit of the wealthy, the alternative and the just plain bizarre. Rather than towering churches and intimate pizzerias, you'll find canal-side mansions near funky boutiques and restaurants.Venice Beach's claim to fame is its boardwalk. Hosting a daily procession of eclectic characters and scantily clad beachgoers, the boardwalk generally impresses out-of-towners. Past visitors loved checking out the area's unique scene (including the open-air Muscle Beach and the Hotel Erwin's High Rooftop Lounge), although some cautioned that the parts away from the pier were not appropriate for younger children. Other travelers note that the boardwalk sometimes reeks of cannabis. Also, remember that Venice Beach can get crowded on sunny days and is better suited for sunbathing, not swimming. Walt Disney Concert Hall This Frank Gehry-designed concert hall's curvaceous, stainless steel façade is an imposing structure in downtown LA. The hall helped revive this particular section of downtown, which was once dominated by mundane office buildings and lackluster entertainment options. Now, nightlife and culture burgeon in the area, and the concert hall is at the forefront. Music-loving travelers will want to catch one of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's performances here. (For ticket and price information, visit the Los Angeles Philharmonic's website.)But you don't have to invest in concert tickets to experience this performance venue: You can follow a docent-led tour or a self-guided audio tour of the exterior and interior (though the actual concert auditorium is off-limits). Hourlong guided and audio tours are both free; audio tours are offered Monday through Saturday from either 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. or 2 to 5 p.m., while guided tour hours vary by day and are generally available on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. For a full tour schedule, visit The Music Center's website. Hollywood Forever Cemetery As morbid as it may seem, your best chance of spotting a celebrity in LA is at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Here, you'll find the final resting places of Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks, Judy Garland, Cecil B. DeMille and other stars who once worked at the adjacent Paramount Pictures Studios. Maps detailing the celebrities' gravesites are available at the cemetery's flower shop.Recent visitors described the cemetery's quiet grounds as "peaceful and serene," adding that the grounds are well-maintained. Many also appreciated the informative and friendly staff. Angeles National Forest In about a half-hour, travelers can trade in busy downtown LA for the serenity of nature at the Angeles National Forest. The almost 700,000-acre forest is an easily accessible place for locals and visitors to hike, bike, ski, ride horses, swim, fish and even camp. Encompassing the San Gabriel Mountains, terrain ranges from desert to dense forest. Perhaps one of the most visited sites is Mount Baldy, which is the highest peak in the San Gabriel Mountains at 10,064 feet. The 28-mile Gabrielino National Recreation Trail offers a variety of hikes, from moderate to challenging. Recent visitors loved the views and found the range of trail options perfect for different types of hikers.Visitors to the Angeles National Forest must purchase a National Forest Adventure Pass. It’s $5 for a daily pass or $30 for an annual pass; the pass is good at other national forests in the area. There are visitor and information centers in different areas of the forest, which offer general information, activities and education events. Visit the forest's website for specific hours and details. La Brea Tar Pits If your kids go crazy for dinosaurs – and really, what kid doesn't? – then a visit to La Brea Tar Pits is sure to be the highlight of their trip. Although the pits look like the set of a cheesy PG

movie, hot tar has been bubbling from the earth at this spot along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile for about 40,000 years. And from the gooiest part of LA, more than 3.5 million fossils from 600-plus species have been discovered. The adjoining museum houses many of the artifacts found at the tar pits; consequently, it is home to one of the largest collections of Ice Age fossils in the world. Recent visitors loved learning something new and found the site fascinating.You can check out the tar pits completely free of charge, but museum tickets start at $15 for adults; reduced entry fees are available for children, students and seniors. You'll save $1 on each ticket if you buy tickets online. All tickets include tours of property facilities like the fossil lab, lake pit and observation pit. Complimentary admission is offered on the first Tuesday of every month (excluding July and August) and every Tuesday in September, but ticket lines on these days are long, so consider reserving your pass online before you arrive. Even if you have to pay to visit, most visitors agree that the exhibits are well worth perusing.

California Science Center A world of fun and exploration await kids, as well as curious adults, at the California Science Center. In the permanent "Ecosystems" exhibit, museumgoers will learn about everything from islands to rivers to forests across eight different zones via interactive displays. In "Creative World," technology takes center stage and explores the innovation in transportation and architecture. But the top draw for recent travelers? The museum's "Air & Space" section which includes the Gemini 11 capsule piloted by Dick Gordon and Pete Conrad as well as a special exhibit about the Endeavor space shuttle. An IMAX theater is also on-site. Recent visitors say the center is wonderful, lots of fun and especially great for kids.The center is free to visit, though special exhibits and IMAX screenings incur a fee. Access to the Endeavor is included with an IMAX or special exhibit ticket. On weekends and holidays, a timed ticket is required to visit Endeavor. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Parking costs $12. You can also take the Metro Expo Line to Expo Park/USC Station and walk five minutes to the center. Visit the center's website for more information. Dodger Stadium Baseball fans should enjoy a visit to Dodger Stadium, which is home to the LA Dodgers and is MLB's third oldest continually used park. The stadium is carved into Chavez Ravine and overlooks downtown LA to the south and the San Gabriel Mountains to the north, making this ballpark quite unique. If the Dodgers aren't playing when you're in town, you can still see the stadium on a guided tour. Tours of the 56,000-seat stadium last approximately 90 minutes. During the tour, visitors will learn about the stadium's history and may get to go on the field, look at the Dodger Dugout or peek into the Lexus Dugout Club (the VIP restaurant and lounge located behind home plate), which houses the team's World Series trophies and various other awards. Additional specialty tours, such as a Jackie Robinson tour, are also offered. Recent tour-goers say the guides are excellent and enthusiastic.The Dodger Stadium Tour is offered at 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. on select dates. Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for children 14 and under. Parking is $17 in advance and $25 at the gate, with no in-and-out privileges and no refunds. Tickets to baseball games are seasonal and prices vary. Greystone Mansion and Park Greystone is one of the largest mansions in Beverly Hills and an important landmark for American cinema. The nearly 13-acre parcel of land was a wedding gift from oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny to his son, Ned, in 1926. Construction on the mansion began in 1927 and took almost three years to complete. Greystone now represents a golden age in American cinema. Many films, including "The Big Lebowski" and "Ghostbusters," and television shows like "General Hospital" and "Gilmore Girls" have been shot on these gothic-inspired grounds.Today, the interior of the mansion is closed, except for special events and tours, but visitors are free to walk around the property. Two-hour park ranger tours of the mansion and gardens are held the first Saturday of the month from January through April as well as the first Sunday in March and April. Tours cost approximately $20 per person. For more information or to register for these tours, visit the website. Many visitors call Greystone Mansion a "hidden gem" within LA, saying that it offers respite from the city's hustle and bustle. Travelers describe the park grounds as spectacular and enjoy learning which of their favorite movies and shows used Greystone as a backdrop. Hollywood Homes Tours Once you've seen where the stars shop, where they eat, where they surf and where they party, you'll want to see where they live. A variety of minibus tours provide ample opportunities to spot homes owned by the rich and famous. You probably won't see the celebs themselves, but you can snap pics of the homes affiliated with A-listers like Sandra Bullock, Tom Cruise, Bruno Mars and Halle Berry. Also, expect to see

facades that once housed the likes of Lucille Ball, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. Along with the stars' abodes, buses usually make stops at the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Sunset Strip and Rodeo Drive.According to recent travelers, the demeanor of your tour guide can make or break your trip. Visitors stuck on tours with grumpy or mumbling guides wished they had just bought a map and done the tour on their own. Also, be sure to check the weather for the day: Extreme heat or a sudden shower can put a damper on an open-top bus ride. Universal Studios Hollywood One of the most popular attractions in the Los Angeles area, Universal Studios Hollywood features rides and amusements based on some of the most popular scenes and characters from film and television. You can take the famous tram tour past the creepy Bates Motel from "Psycho" and get caught up in a high speed chase with the "Fast & Furious" cast. Kids can shake hands with cartoon favorites like SpongeBob SquarePants and Scooby-Doo. Of course, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is another huge hit, as is Jurassic World – The Ride. If thrills are your thing, there are plenty of hair-raising coasters and rides. On Transformers: The Ride-3D, riders join Optimus Prime in his battle against the Decepticons; meanwhile, youngsters will love the 3D ride Despicable Me Minion Mayhem (complete with a Minion dance party).Universal Studios welcomes hoards of tourists each day; to forgo the long waits, travelers suggest purchasing the Express pass (formerly Front of the Line passes), which cost $179 to $279 each, online. This brings up another pain point: the price. At $109 to $129 for one-day general admission for adults and $103 to $123 for little ones ages 3 to 9 (when purchased online), a family excursion to Universal Studios doesn't come cheap, something some visitors find off-putting. Grand Central Market Grand Central Market, or foodie heaven according to visitors, is located in downtown Los Angeles by the Walt Disney Concert Hall and The Broad. The venue features high ceilings and an open layout, with food vendor stalls offering different cuisines that represent cultures from the Los Angeles area and beyond. The market has been in operation since 1917 and serves everything from coffee and pressed juices to deli fare, egg sandwiches, falafel, tacos and chow mein.Visitors love this market's lively atmosphere, while others thought it didn't live up to the hype. Regardless, this foodie paradise is popular, so expect lines. You'll also find that meals here are considerably cheaper than those served in other parts of the city. Hollyhock House Warner Bros. Studio Located in Burbank, California – a city that sits just 5 miles north of Hollywood – Warner Bros. Studio gives visitors a close-up look at iconic movie and TV sets and props, such as the original Batmobiles, costumes from the "Harry Potter" movies and a replica of the cafe featured in "Friends." Travelers will also drive around the studio's 110-acre backlot, where 30 soundstages are used for producing shows like "Young Sheldon," "Bob Hearts Abishola," and "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."Previous visitors loved exploring this property and appreciated their "fun and knowledgeable" tour guides. Additionally, many enjoyed getting out of their golf carts to go inside a working set and other buildings used for filming, citing this as the main reason to tour this studio instead of others like Paramount Pictures Studios. But keep in mind, children 7 and younger are not permitted on any tour. https://travel.usnews.com/Los_Angeles_CA/Things_To_Do/

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Oh not again the Paywall!

… Oh boy. This comic will be deader than expected.

When Dobson announced a few years ago he was working on a new comic involving a mountain cabin and supernatural elements, I was at the very least intrigued enough to see where this was going. I never expected it to be a groundbreaking comic or the worst thing anyone has ever done, but considering his track record so far when it came to creating original, long planned out comics, made me at least curious. Would it be better, worse or more woke than Alex ze Pirate. One thing I did however hope for was that Dobson would be for once smart enough to not hide his stuff behind a paywall, which has so far always killed his comics that are neither Ladybug or SYAC related. But hey, unlike Dobson, I can admit when I am wrong with an assumption.

 To be clear here, I am aware that Dobson “hides” the comic behind a 5000 dollar paywall only so that some person who donates to him the necessary dollar a month to see the panels uploaded by Dobson thrice a week can no longer do so and leak them to kiwifarms.

 However, even the dollar per month thing to me is a very, very dumb idea.

 I get it. People want to make money of something they create. I don’t hold it against webcomic artists to sell merchandise/tradepaperbacks of their stuff or create additional content to their regular updated comic pages, that people can pay for to see. But here is a major difference between Andrew Dobson and almost every other webcomic artist out there and which has been a key factor in why Dobson’s career as a comic creator has never taken off to.

 Webcomic artists stay relevant, by making their major comics public.

 I know Dobson’s work for a couple of years and the overall quality (or rather lack thereof) in his work aside, one thing I was dumbfounded the most off was how he basically sabotaged his own “career” in the medium. I have read a couple of sprite and webcomics over the years and even if the webcomic in question was utter bullshit for some reason cough sinfest cough one thing I saw was that in one way or another the comic and its artist would find an audience, BECAUSE the comic was easily to access on the net. You did not need to pay for the privilege of seeing  something someone created out of a whim. You could see the thing develop and go on because the person creating it became aware of people liking it and in doing so getting an extra boost to continue on.

 And by doing so, as time went on those people would eventually manage to make money of their work and even improve at least some aspect of it, may it be the storywriting or just the artwork.

 But Dobson made sure that when he wanted to start off his career, his stuff would not be seen.

 See, before SYAC became the thing he focuses on the most, there were at least two major comic series Dobson created and wanted to make money off. Percy Phillips, a detective comic about a Holmes knock off and Formera, a story about a boy stuck in a prehistoric fantasy world, no one is really sure about where it was heading for (not even the author).

Dobson made sure there was fanart of his characters and at least reading samples of around 10 pages on average everywhere he went to online the most (deviantart and smackjeevee). But aside of that, he did nothing with his creations online. Some random, unregularly uploaded fanart on aside, he would never upload more pages of Formera e.g. on deviantart, nor information about the comics direction, assuring that average interest of people in his stuff and the story was dimished fast. And when people are not interested in your story, they are not interested in you as an artist much. And when people are not interested in you as an artist (and your behavior online starts to additionally alienate them from you even more) it is no wonder your career never gets off. Now some may wonder, if Dobson drew reading samples, did that mean he wanted to draw more? Yes of course he wanted. And he actually did. But you needed to buy the tradepaperback to see those pages.

Basically what he did back then was, that he falsely approached the “webcomic” audience in a manner more suffice for people who want to buy physical copies of comics in bookstores or comic shops. Release a few reading samples, hope they get people interested in you and then make money by them buying this stuff. However, this entire approach was faulty. First off, the general quality of Dobson’s writing and artwork even back then made it not really look in any way worth to buy the comic, when there were way better products to be found either professionally published or online. To give you an example, these are some of the opening pages of Formera, published around 2005-08.

By comparison, that is a page of infamous internet webartist Bleedmann and his Powerpuff Girl comic , released around 2006.

I am sorry to say that, but why should I pay good money for Formera, something that looks like it was drawn by an average 16 year old anime fangirl at the time, when I could have something “better” drawn and designed by others? Even if those others are freaking lolicons.

I mean sure, the backgrounds look okay here and there, but composition wise the thing looks just not good. And that is from someone who went to art school and had the gaul to talk shit about mangas?

Secondly, the reading samples where just the first pages of his comics in general. Meaning nothing really happened in them and with the lack of information about the comics provided, nothing was really there to get others’ attention. Add to all of that the fact Dobson wanted between 10 and 20 dollar for 170 pages on average or less (Look up Legends, the precursor to Alex ze Pirate. Only 78 pages! Formera at least had around 152 per volume at prices between 9,99 and 15$) when you could buy a manga with more than 250 pages for less at the time…

And people said nope and rather looked up what the heck this Sonichu was people talked about.

As a result, Dobson never really sold stuff as proven with deviantart entries like this…

and he cancelled his comics after 1 or 2 volumes, not even wrapping up his stories he was supposedly so proud of and wanted to tell. All because Dobson essentially cared more about “making quick money” instead of telling a decent story he wanted people to read.

By abandoning these projects (and the characters in it) unceremoniously, Dobson had in my opinion also contributed a lot towards his online infamy. After all, what are you supposed to believe about a creator, who abandons his own creation completely instead of at least trying to salvage it (he could have still made Formera publicly readable by making it a webcomic) and has the audacity to call the overall popularity of others (particularly anime and mangas) the reason for its failing success. Plus it seems that their failure was the main reason why he would rather create 4-panel or one page comics instead of stories with more complexity afterwards, which resulted in the way Alex ze Pirate was presented (and is a topic for a later entry) and eventually SYAC.

 Bottomline, creating a “paywall” for his original work resulted in people on average not becoming aware of Dobson as the creator of some okayish comics, because they never saw them and instead would be exposed to other, “inferior” if not outright meanspirited and toxic artwork and opinions. And creating a paywall for Cabin’s Rest, even if as minimalistic as 1$ will just result in history repeating itself. He can claim that he creates a great comic as much as he wants, if we can’t see it for ourselves and judge, we can only say “what comic”? He won’t gain widespread popularity this way, because so far only 13-16 people (the total amount of Patreons he has to my knowledge) even were able to see the comic.

And now not even they can, because Dobson wants to spite his critics/trolls and take away the chance for them to see it, by making it unwatchable for anyone. I know he claims it is only for as long till he finds a way to get rid of the leaker, but that also begs the question: How do you want to do that? How do you want to assure only those who will not leak it, see this comic? You have already so little traffic on the site, you should actually be happy even for trolls paying you, cause at least it pays for a Happy Meal once a month. Dobson, if you really want Cabin’s Rest aka muslim vampire comic to succeed, you should just make it public. I know doing so will mean you are also exposed to all your critics and yes they will find something to mock and criticize, but at least you are out and have a higher chance to find also people willingly ready to support you, cause they want to see it.

[eyesopen2019]

Eurostar to Paris

On the 4th June we caught the train back to London and got on the Eurostar to head to Paris. We had watched some videos of the making of the tunnel and were all interested to see what going on a train under the water would be like. The train travels up to speeds of 300km per hour and covers the 490km in 2 hours and 15 mins with 50 km of tunnel under The English Channel.  The journey is very smooth and you can hardly notice you have entered the tunnel or exited it and certainly don’t see any fish or sealife much to Lani’s disappointment.  We arrived in Paris in the afternoon and made our way to our Airbnb in Izzy. Navigating the subway system the first time was a challenge especially as I had no data on my phone and we couldn’t use apple maps!  When we arrived at our house we found a 3 storey home with views out to the Eiffel tower from the upstairs bedroom.  There was heaps of room to stretch out and the kids made themselves at home.  Hung and I opened a bottle of French champagne, one of several bottles of wine, which had been left in the fridge for us. Lani was excited to find some kids toys in the house to play with and spent ages making up games with them.

On our first day out in Paris it was overcast and drizzling and we caught the bus into The Arc de Triumph and wandered down the Champs-Elyssees.  We found our lunch of baguettes, cheese, ham and salami in a local supermarket. I enjoyed looking at all the gorgeous buildings and tree lined boulevards which reminded me of our trips to Saigon.

The next day was a lovely sunny day and we took the opportunity to head to the Eiffel Tower where we climbed the stairs to the second level then took the elevator to the top. It was a fairly easy climb up the couple hundred stairs but we took it pretty slowly.  The view from the top is amazing and it’s interesting to try to pick out all the major landmarks throughout the city.  We again bought lunch in a nearby supermarket and sat in the park under the Eiffel tower for lunch.  During our time in Paris we enjoyed the amazing baguettes bought very cheaply everywhere as well as the amazing variety of cheeses.   Each day we would buy a baguette to stick in the backpack for when Leon or Lani were suddenly starving!  Leon also especially enjoyed the chocolate croissants and I think was trying to get a record when he had 6 in one day.  

Another day, Hung and I had a day out with Lani and left the boys at home.  We wandered around the Notre Dame Cathedral which unfortunately suffered a huge fire a few months ago.  We explored the area around the Louvre and over several nearby bridges. Lani loved to checkout all the love locks which had been placed around, and see which were the oldest ones.  Hung and Lani each bought a special leather hat from a small shop down an alleyway which were all made onsite and handcut and sewn.  Hung’s hat reminds me of his Dad’s hat he used to wear everywhere and I think it will be his ‘old man hat’ now until he is very old and it will be passed down to the kids!  Lani choose a black leather beret which looks really cute and she says reminds her of Ong Noi’s hat.  We had a lovely lunch out at a little French café near the Notre Dame Cathedral and Hung and I enjoyed a glass of wine while watching the passing traffic.  Lani bought a slime making kit which she enjoyed putting all the bits together to make her own slime when she got home.

There are so many museums to visit in Paris but we only ventured to The Louvre but on the day we had planned to go we arrived to find it sold out.  We were a bit more organised the next day and bought tickets online but unfortunately when we did get inside it was so crowded and hot that it was not very pleasant to wander around.  We made a beeline for the Mona Lisa and checked out a few other areas before retreating to the open space outside again.  The kids were fairly unimpressed with the Mona Lisa and couldn’t really see what all the fuss was about.  They were more interested in the sculptures, especially one called ‘The Fisherman’.  Leon was puzzled why everyone in the paintings and sculptures was naked and why in all the paintings people had no eyebrows!

We wandered a lot in Paris, seeing many gardens, statues, palace’s and plaza’s throughout the city. It is a very walkable city and you can venture from area to area easily.  Everywhere there are small coffee shops and restaurants with an endless array of food to try.  Eating out was generally expensive, as was coffee at $7-9 a cup, needless to say we didn’t eat out much!  It was also very difficult to find public toilets and often we had to pay for them!

One of my favourite days was when we went to a flea markets which was not that great but from there we wandered up the hillside to Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris (Sacre-Coeur) which is a Roman Catholic church set on the highest point in Montmarte hill.  It was built in 1875 and since 1885 there has been constant prayers, day and night, by patrons within the church.  We had seen the basilica from the Eiffel tower when we climbed to the top and had wondered what it was.  We looked inside the church and then climbed the stairs to the dome for an amazing view of the city and saw all the landmarks we had visited over the previous week.  

On one of our last days Kai and I decided to check out The Catacombs where we patiently waited in the drizzling rain for several hours.  The Catacombs, a series of tunnels under the city which were originally dug out in the 15th century for the stone and used in the buildings of the city.  The quarrying stopped after a series of land collapses and remained abandoned for many years.  In the 1700’s when the population of the city grew and the officials were worried about diseases from the dead they placed the bones of millions of graves in the tunnels.  There are hundreds of kms of tunnels, many of which are not mapped.  You are able to explore a series of 1.5kms of tunnel which is a bit morbid but it was interesting to see how the bones have been placed and presented for viewing since the 1800’s.  

We left our lovely Parisian Airbnb on 11th June to check into a very budget hotel (IBIS budget) near the Paris Orly airport which was not very pleasant and definitely not one I would recommend.  We were due to leave Paris on the 11th June but we changed our plans so we could see a friend of Hung’s, Kevin, and his family who were in town on holiday from Colorado.  We were only sleeping at the ‘hotel’ so we survived – but only just, especially Kai. Hung and Kevin were friends in their 20’s and hadn’t seen each other for over 20 years.  We had a lovely dinner out with their family and ours and I’m sure we will see them out in Australia sometime.  

[pamphletstoinspire]

Porn’s Harm Is Changing Fast

Skeptics of pornography’s danger point out that porn has been around a long time. After all, the ancient Greeks painted sexual images on their pottery. But comparing paintings on Greek vases to today’s endless stream of live-action, hardcore videos is like comparing apples to…um…kumquats. Technology is changing not only the content of porn, but how, when, and at what age it’s being consumed.

The year was 1953, and Hugh Heffner had just published the first copy of Playboy.

Sex had just started to become a more prominent part of American’s cultural conversation, partly because of Dr. Alfred Kinsey who, five years earlier, had published a controversial but extremely popular book on sexuality. [1] He was heralded as one of the first scientists and writers to talk so openly about sexuality, and his books went flying off the shelves. [2]

Heffner saw a chance to make money from the changing cultural views about sex. But to maximize sales of his new magazine he had to change porn’s image from something your friend’s creepy relative might read to something sophisticated and mainstream. So Heffner put his pornographic photos next to essays and articles written by respected authors. In Playboy, porn started to look like nothing more than harmless pleasure engaged in by respectable and successful individuals.

Flash forward to the 1980s, when VCRs suddenly made it possible for people to watch movies at home. [3] For porn consumers, that meant that instead of having to go to seedy movie theaters on the wrong side of town, they just went to the back room at their local movie rental place. Sure, they still had to go out to find it, but porn was a lot more accessible.

And then the internet changed everything. [4][5]

Once porn hit the Web in the 1990s, suddenly there was nothing but a few keystrokes between anyone with an internet connection and the most graphic material available. [4] The online porn industry exploded. Between 1998 and 2007, the number of pornographic websites grew by 1,800%. [6] By 2004, porn sites were getting three times more visitors than Google, Yahoo!, and MSN Search put together. [7] It was “big business” in a way the world had never seen before. Thirty percent of all internet data was related to porn, [8] and worldwide porn revenues (including internet, sex shops, videos rented in hotel rooms, etc.) grew to exceed the incomes of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflix, and Earthlink combined! [9]

As internet porn grew more popular, it also turned darker, more graphic, and more extreme. (See Why Consuming Porn Is An Escalating Behavior.) With so much porn available, pornographers tried to compete for attention by constantly pushing the boundaries. [10] “Thirty years ago ‘hardcore’ pornography usually meant the explicit depiction of sexual intercourse,” writes Dr. Norman Doidge, a neuroscientist and author of The Brain That Changes Itself. “Now hardcore has evolved and is increasingly dominated by the sadomasochistic themes … all involving scripts fusing sex with hatred and humiliation.” [11] In our post-Playboy world, porn now features degradation, abuse, and humiliation of people in a way never before seen in the mass media. [12] “[S]oftcore is now what hardcore was a few decades ago,” Doidge explains. “The comparatively tame softcore pictures of yesteryear … now show up on mainstream media all day long, in the pornification of everything, including television, rock videos, soap operas, advertisements, and so on.” [13]

As the popularity of internet porn grew like wildfire, so did its influence. Network television shows, pay-per-view channel series, and movies began to up the ante with more and more graphic content as they scrambled to keep the attention of audiences accustomed to internet porn. [14] Between 1998 and 2005, the number of sex scenes on American TV shows nearly doubled, [15] and it wasn’t just happening on adult programs. In a study conducted in 2004 and 2005, 70% of the 20 TV shows most often watched by teens included sexual content, and nearly half showed sexual behavior. [16] And for the first time, porn was becoming a routine part of teen life and a major way adolescents learned about sex. [17]

By now, porn’s effects have soaked into every aspect of our lives. [18] Popular video games now feature full nudity. [19] Snowboards marketed to teens are plastered with images of porn performers. [20] Even children’s toys have become more sexualized. [21]

Technology has changed not only the content of the porn, but also how, when, and at what age they consume it. Young men and women are all presented with the issue of today’s porn, and studies show that by the time they turn 14 years old, two out of three boys in the U.S. have viewed porn in the last year, [22] and many are watching it on devices they have with them 24 hours a day.

And for all of these changes to the nature and reach of today’s pornography, we haven’t even mentioned the most disturbing development of all: human trafficking. The modern-day slave trade (and there is one) is fueled by pornography. Over two-thirds of all calls to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center involve sex trafficking—an estimated 21 million victims worldwide [23], and in one survey, 63% of underage sex trafficking victims said they had been advertised or sold online [24].

This is not a Third World problem. Sex trafficking, and its dissemination through online pornographic sites, extends beyond prostitution and child trafficking rings to the many “revenge porn” sites, to the coercion, drugging, and/or physical abuse of porn performers, wannabe models, and runaways right here in the United States. Human trafficking includes any “commercial sex act induced by force, fraud, or coercion.” [25] (See How Porn Fuels Sex Trafficking.)

In fact, exposure to porn has been found, along with poverty, drug abuse, and homelessness, to be one of the most consistent risk factors associated with human trafficking. [26] And after victims are ensnared, porn is often used to desensitize them to the acts in which they will be forced to engage. Quite literally, porn feeds human trafficking and human trafficking feeds porn. [27]

The argument that porn is nothing new—that it’s been around forever and never caused any great harm—seems pretty silly when you think about how different today’s porn is from anything that existed before. Porn is incomparably more accessible, more widespread, and more extreme than anything that existed even a generation ago. Those centerfold magazines that were passed around among youth in previous generations were nothing compared to what youth have access to today, [28] and the consequences of looking today go far beyond young people hoping their parents don’t find out.

The good news is that in response to the unprecedented spread of pornography there are an unprecedented number of resources and people who want to help, whether by spreading facts about pornography or helping those who feel caught in its undertow. Today’s pornography is a new phenomenon, unlike anything humankind has ever seen, but the things that can push porn back are as old as humanity itself: wisdom, vigilance, and a commitment to real love.

Citations

[1] Brown, T. M., & Fee, E. (2003). Alfred C. Kinsey: A Pioneer Of Sex Research. American Journal Of Public Health 93(6), 896-897. Retrieved From Ncbi.Nlm.Nih.Go..cles/PMC1447862

[2] Mestel, R. (2004, November 15). The Kinsey Effect. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved From Articles.Latime..lth/He-Kinsey15

[3] Kalman, T.P. (2008). Clinical Encounters With Internet Pornography. Journal Of The American Academy Of Psychoanalysis And Dynamic Psychiatry, 36(4) 593-618. Doi:10.1521/Jaap.2008.36.4.593; McAline, D. (2001). Interview On American Porn. Frontline, PBS, August.

[4] Layden, M. A. (2010). Pornography And Violence: A New Look At The Research. In J. Stoner & D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 57–68). Princeton, NJ: Witherspoon Institute; Kalman, T.P. (2008). Clinical Encounters With Internet Pornography. Journal Of The American Academy Of Psychoanalysis And Dynamic Psychiatry, 36(4) 593-618. Doi:10.1521/Jaap.2008.36.4.593;

[5] Paul, P. (2007). Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, And Our Families. New York: Henry Hold & Co., 3; McCarthy, B. W. (2002). The Wife’s Role In Facilitating Recovery From Male Compulsive Sexual Behavior. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity 9, 4: 275–84. Doi:10.1080/10720160216045; Schneider, J. P. (2000). Effects Of Cybersex Addiction On The Family: Results Of A Survey. Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity, 7(1-2), 31–58. Retrieved From Jenniferschneid..sex_family.Html

[6] Websense Research Shows Online Pornography Sites Continue Strong Growth. (2004). PRNewswire.Com, April 4.

[7] Porn More Popular Than Search. (2004). InternetWeek.Com, June 4.

[8] Negash, S., Van Ness Sheppard, N., Lambert, N. M., & Fincham, F. D. (2016). Trading Later Rewards For Current Pleasure: Pornography Consumption And Delay Discounting. Journal Of Sex Research, 53(6), 689-700. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2015.1025123; Porn Sites Get More Visitors Each Month Than Netflix, Amazon, & Twitter Combined. (2013, May 4). Huffington Post. Retrieved From Huffingtonpost..._n_3187682.Html

[9] DeKeseredy, W. (2015). Critical Criminological Understandings Of Adult Pornography And Women Abuse: New Progressive Directions In Research And Theory. International Journal For Crime, Justice, And Social Democracy, 4(4) 4-21. Doi:10.5204/Ijcjsd.V4i4.184

[10] Woods, J. (2012). Jamie Is 13 And Hasn’t Even Kissed A Girl. But He’s Now On The Sex Offender Register After Online Porn Warped His Mind. Daily Mail (U.K.), April 25.

[11] Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books.

[12] DeKeseredy, W. (2015). Critical Criminological Understandings Of Adult Pornography And Women Abuse: New Progressive Directions In Research And Theory. International Journal For Crime, Justice, And Social Democracy, 4(4) 4-21. Doi:10.5204/Ijcjsd.V4i4.184

[13] Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books.

[14] Caro, M. (2004). The New Skin Trade. Chicago Tribune, September 19.

[15] Kunkel, D., Eyal, K., Finnerty, K., Biely, E., And Donnerstein, E. (2005). Sex On TV 4. Menlo Park, CA: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

[16] Peter, J. And Valkenburg, P. M. (2007). Adolescents’ Exposure To A Sexualized Media Environment And Their Notions Of Women As Sex Objects. Sex Roles 56,(5-6), Doi:381–95.10.1007/S11199-006-9176-Y

[17] Peter, J. & Valkenburg, P. M., (2016) Adolescents And Pornography: A Review Of 20 Years Of Research. Journal Of Sex Research, 53(4-5), 509-531. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2016.1143441; Rothman, E. F., Kaczmarsky, C., Burke, N., Jansen, E., & Baughman, A. (2015). “Without Porn…I Wouldn’t Know Half The Things I Know Now”: A Qualitative Study Of Pornography Use Among A Sample Of Urban, Low-Income, Black And Hispanic Youth. Journal Of Sex Research, 52(7), 736-746. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2014.960908; Paul, P. (2010). From Pornography To Porno To Porn: How Porn Became The Norm. In J. Stoner & D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 3–20). Princeton, N.J.: Witherspoon Institute; Carroll, J. S., Padilla-Walker, L. M., And Nelson, L. J. (2008). Generation XXX: Pornography Acceptance And Use Among Emerging Adults. Journal Of Adolescent Research, 23(1), 6–30. Doi:10.1177/0743558407306348

[18] Bridges, A. J. (2010). Pornography’s Effect On Interpersonal Relationships. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 89-110). Princeton, NJ: Witherspoon Institute; Paul, P. (2010). From Pornography To Porno To Porn: How Porn Became The Norm. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 3–20). Princeton, N.J.: Witherspoon Institute; Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself. New York: Penguin Books, 102; Caro, M. (2004). The New Skin Trade. Chicago Tribune, September 19.

[19] Paul, P. (2010). From Pornography To Porno To Porn: How Porn Became The Norm. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 3–20). Princeton, N.J.: Witherspoon Institute.

[20] Paul, P. (2010). From Pornography To Porno To Porn: How Porn Became The Norm. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 3–20). Princeton, N.J.: Witherspoon Institute.

[21] Bridges, A. J. (2010). Pornography’s Effect On Interpersonal Relationships. In J. Stoner And D. Hughes (Eds.) The Social Costs Of Pornography: A Collection Of Papers (Pp. 89-110). Princeton, NJ: Witherspoon Institute.

[22] Rothman, E. F., Kaczmarsky, C., Burke, N., Jansen, E., & Baughman, A. (2015). “Without Porn…I Wouldn’t Know Half The Things I Know Now”: A Qualitative Study Of Pornography Use Among A Sample Of Urban, Low-Income, Black And Hispanic Youth. Journal Of Sex Research, 52(7), 736-746. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2014.960908

[23] University Of New England, “Human Sex Trafficking: An Online Epidemic #Infographic” (2015). Retreived By Visualistan.Com..e-Epidemic.Html

[24] Thorn, “A Report On The Use Of Technology To Recruit, Groom, And Sell Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Victim (2015). Retrieved From Wearethorn.Org/..r_Survey_r5.Pdf

[25] Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) Of 2000. Pub. L. No. 106-386, Section 103 (8) (A).

[26] Countryman-Roswurm, Karen (2017). Primed For Perpetration: Porn And The Perpetuation Of Sex Trafficking. Guest Blog For FTND, Retrieved From Fightthenewdrug..ing-Pornography

[27] Dr. Karen Countryman-Roswurm, LMSW, Ph.D. Interview || Truth About Porn [Video File]. (2016, December 28). Retrieved From Vimeo.Com/190317258

[28] Price, J., Patterson, R., Regnerus, M., & Walley, J. (2016). How Much More XXX Is Generation X Consuming? Evidence Of Changing Attitudes And Behaviors Related To Pornography Since 1973. Journal Of Sex Research, 53(1), 12-20. Doi:10.1080/00224499.2014.1003773

[whatimconsuming]

The Untold Story of the NFT Boom

For decades, digital artists got little respect. Then Bitcoin emerged in 2009, proving that with blockchain code you could make digital items that were all but impossible to copy. The first artistic experiments in that vein were made by the New York-based fine artist Kevin McCoy, who became intrigued by Bitcoin and its blockchain soon after its debut. He wondered if it could show the way toward a new revenue stream for creators. McCoy was especially excited by the prospect of decentralization — the blockchain could enable an artist to sell works to fans directly, without the need for an iTunes-like intermediary. In 2014, McCoy, collaborating with the entrepreneur Anil Dash, created an experimental crypto token for a piece of his own digital art. They called it “monetized graphics.” The next year, McCoy opened a small start-up that let artists create and sell tokens of their work. He was met, mostly, with blank stares. “It was a tough grasp for people,” McCoy says. In the spring of 2017, the concept took on new life. Matt Hall and John Watkinson, two programmers in Brooklyn, created a set of collectible characters, little pixelated heads of punk-rock-looking creatures that they called CryptoPunks. (They’re fond of “wacky projects,” Hall told me.) They were unaware of McCoy and Dash’s earlier experiment. But they knew about Ether, then a new cryptocurrency that ran on a platform called Ethereum. That platform had a simple programming language that enabled coders to create new financial products with Ether as their currency. Hall and Watkinson used that language to issue an NFT for each CryptoPunk, figuring that people would be tickled by the idea of possessing little pixelated heads, perhaps trading them like baseball cards. Hall and Watkinson created 10,000 CryptoPunks and put NFTs of each of them on a website where anyone could claim one for free and transfer it to an Ethereum wallet. They decided to give away 9,000 Punks and keep the other 1,000 for themselves.

Few were claimed right away. Then, several weeks later, the website Mashable published a story proclaiming that CryptoPunks “could change how we think about digital art.” A frantic subculture was born: Visitors swamped the CryptoPunks site — and “within 24 hours they were gone,” Hall told me. Owners began reselling the NFTs to new collectors, for hundreds of dollars at first, then tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Later that year, another NFT collectibles site called CryptoKitties appeared, where people bought and traded NFTs of digital cats. By the end of 2017, some individual Kitties and Punks were selling for as much as $170,000.

The boom in Kitties and Punks inspired John Crain, a founder of SuperRare. At the time, Crain was working for a cryptocurrency incubator. Crain, who owned some CryptoPunks, imagined a marketplace for digital artworks much as McCoy had years before. If digital culture could be owned and traded, an entire new market could emerge, he told me — one with high-earning artists but also, he hoped, a “long tail” whereby even obscure artists, with only a few fans, could make a bit of money. Cryptoart could offer artists a better deal, he figured: Historically, galleries take about 50 percent of the first sale, while SuperRare would take only 15 percent. On top of that, cryptoartists would get a cut of resales, something generally unheard-of in the traditional art world. Crain and his co-founders wrote the code for their NFTs so that artists automatically get 10 percent of the sale price every time an owner resells their work. He began reaching out to digital artists who posted their work to Tumblr or Giphy, a repository of animated GIFs. A few of them began using SuperRare to create NFTs for their work. What sales there were went for small sums. One artist, Coldie, began listing his work in April 2018, and his early sales were for perhaps $100 each. In the spring of 2020, the market for cryptoart began to heat up, when Coldie sold a piece for $1,000. Artists and collectors called him “King Coldie.” By the middle of 2020, prices were soaring. Another record-setter was Matt Kane, a former painter who had become disillusioned with traditional galleries and spent the late 2000s and early 2010s teaching himself coding and web development. He wrote custom software to help him make intricate digital paintings. In May 2019, he released his first works on SuperRare, a series based on the grief he felt after a friend’s suicide. His early NFT sales were meager; one collector bought an artwork for $85 and sold it the next week for a profit of $59. For some crypto investors, it’s clear, buying cryptoart gives them something artsy to talk about in a field dominated by otherwise numbingly technical conversations. In the old days, people hung their $40 million Picassos on their mansion walls. Because NFTs are just data, though, cryptoart collectors are mostly staring at screens (if they’re even looking at their holdings). Sometimes these are very high-tech screens. Collectors have created virtual-reality galleries so they can strap on their goggles and behold their art on a virtual wall and invite friends to join them for viewing parties. Other collectors eschew this sort of display; they simply pull up their art on their iPhones or computer browsers, the way they use Instagram. Indeed, several people told me that they appreciate digital art for space-saving reasons. There’s one aspect to NFT culture that can seem utterly bewildering to outsiders: Someone who buys an artwork NFT owns only the NFT. The NFT typically contains data that corresponds to information about the artwork, including the creator, the title and a link to an online copy of it. But the visible part of the art, the JPEG or animated GIF, the thing you look at? That is just a digital file hosted somewhere online, with the NFT commonly pointing to it. (If that site hosting the art goes down, the NFT no longer even points to anything.) Anyone can go to SuperRare or another NFT art site, right-click to copy the file, and then post it to Instagram or Facebook, say, or make it the background on a phone. So what, precisely, do the collectors think they’re getting when they buy an NFT? Many say they’re acquiring proof of their ties to the artwork and to the creator. They can assert bragging rights, as it were. As for the pixels themselves — well, no one cares if other people can see them, too. “I can hang a really nice print of the ‘Mona Lisa’ on my wall and that doesn’t mean I have the ‘Mona Lisa,’” Goltra told me. All the collectors I spoke to professed to be happy if the artworks they owned were copied widely around the internet: Millions of people staring at a piece of

digital art make it more valuable for the person who owns it. Vignesh Sundaresan and Anand Venkateswaran. They are the founders of Metapurse, a fund that collects NFTs. They bought his $69 million NFT, and back during Beeple’s weekend December sale, they had created several pseudonymous accounts that bought 20 of his NFT “Everydays,” worth $2.2 million together. Sundaresan and Venkateswaran had a plan for Beeple’s art. For the first purchase — the 20 Everydays — they bought plots in three online 3-D worlds and hired a team of designers to build virtual museums in each, filling them with Beeple’s art. Sundaresan and I met virtually inside one of the museums, where we wandered around as gamelike avatars, stopping at pieces like one that showed Tom Hanks punching a coronavirus. “The gallery’s public,” Sundaresan said, free for anyone. But the museums were only the beginning of their plan. The other part was to turn Beeple’s work into a new cryptocurrency, essentially. In January, they took the 20 Beeple “Everydays” NFTs they had bought for $2.2 million and created a new set of NFT tokens, 10 million in total, called B20. Those tokens represent fractional ownership in that Beeple work. They paid 10 percent of the tokens to the designers who built the virtual museums, he said, gave 2 percent to Beeple and kept 50 percent for themselves. Some of the remainder would be put up for sale. “The idea here was to take the art and share the ownership with a lot of people,” Sundaresan said, as our avatars floated up and over the museum. Those B20 tokens may have already generated — on paper, anyway — a hefty return. In late January, Sundaresan and Venkateswaran held a virtual party in their online museums to introduce their new token. In short order, they sold 2.6 million tokens, raising close to $1 million. On March 10, the value of a B20 token peaked at slightly above $27; by May 7, it had fallen to just over $2. Assuming they still have their five million tokens, their share is worth about $10 million.

[aion-rsa]

How the Pokémon Trading Card Game Boom Brought Back Pokémon Fever

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This story is presented by

The popularity of the Pokémon Trading Card Game was not an accident. While some might be quick to call it an overnight sensation, that actually sells short the effort that went into the Pokémon TCG (and the games it was based on).

Released in Japan in October 1996 (just 8 months after the debut of the first Pokémon games), the Pokémon TCG was one of the first major additions to what would become a vast pipeline of Pokémon merchandise. While clearly inspired by the incredible success of the Magic: The Gathering franchise, as well as Pokémon collectible cards released by Bandai earlier that year, the Pokémon TCG was no mere copycat. Along with being more accessible than other TCGs on the market, the Pokémon card game proved to be a natural extension of the things that made millions fall in love with the original games.

“Ishihara-san, President of The Pokémon Company, loved tabletop/card games and wanted to create a card game which would act as a ‘Physical’ Pokédex and give players another way to experience the Pokémon brand,” said Pokémon TCG director Atsushi Nagashima in an Evening Standard interview. “The idea of a trading card game fit perfectly in line with Pokémon‘s tenets of play, trade, and collect. It also encourages face-to-face play which has been key to the product’s success and longevity.”

By Nagashima’s own admission, though, nobody predicted what happened in late 1998 and early 1999 when Wizards of the Coast brought the Pokémon TCG to North America with the release of the Base Set. Despite the increased availability of the cards, the growth of the Pokémon TCG during this time was partially driven by their scarcity. Mobs of fans stormed stores at the mere suggestion of a new shipment while the value of intentionally manufactured rare cards quickly soared. 

While the Pokémon TCG only grew more successful as the years passed, its dominance on the public consciousness seemed to fade for a while. No, it’s not like we’d look back on an old binder of Pokémon cards and shake our flushed faces in embarrassment, but for a time it felt like the Pokémon TCG had maybe reached its peak in the ‘90s, a pop culture moment meant to be cherished and preserved in our memory. 

But the Pokémon TCG’s story is far from over… In fact, Pokémon fever is back with a vengeance and has taught us all a little more about the true value of nostalgia.

Gotta Collect ‘Em All

“The market right now is insane,” says Peter “Arcashine” Chipouras, a mod on the r/PKMNTCGTrades card trading subreddit and professional card grader. “Stores used to be relatively full of product, and, if you were lucky, something lucrative might still be available. Nowadays, there’s nothing. Everything is bought out. Online retailers can’t restock quickly enough, and even if they do have the product in stock, they price it high to meet the secondary market.”

“Insane” is certainly the word for the sales records being set at the moment. A recent eBay report revealed that Pokémon trading card sales had increased by 574% from 2019 to 2020. Last year, a 1st Edition Charizard card sold for over $295,000. An even rarer version of the card commanded a price of over $350,000. In November 2020, Heritage Auctions sold a box of 1st Edition Pokémon booster sets for $360,000. A similar set had gone for $198,000 just two months before. 

You expect older cards to become more valuable over time. What’s impressive, though, is that this buying craze has extended to modern Pokémon TCG cards, too 

“Even at the lowest level, we’re seeing sets that are normally printed to demand facing huge droughts of product,” Chipouras says. “Regular pack prices are typically $4.00 at retail stores, and usually around $3.00, give or take, on the secondary market. Recently, they’ve been pushing $7-$8.00 each.”

The extent of this shortage even impacted a recent McDonald’s promotion that offered limited supply Pokémon TCG cards with every Happy Meal. Across the country, stores were mobbed by enthusiastic buyers willing to buy dozens of Happy Meals simply for the card packs in their containers. Things have gotten to a point where The Pokémon Company has had to issue a rare statement regarding these shortages alongside a promise that more cards are on the way. 

This too may seem like it came out of nowhere, but that’s not really the case. As of March 2020, over 30 billion Pokémon TCG cards have been sold worldwide. Mobile game Pokémon GO has generated over $4 billion in revenue since 2016. The latest Pokémon games (Sword and Shield) have sold over 20 million units in a little over a year. The consistent success of the Pokémon franchise means it’s always been more “susceptible” to spikes that elevate the already impressive baseline popularity of the series. Millions are ready to become obsessed with Pokémon again at a moment’s notice.

But why is the Pokémon TCG specifically experiencing such a resurgence right now? It seems to come down to a couple of key factors. 

“One side is financial, where you’re seeing a lot of kids that grew up with the first Pokémon games finally hitting an age where they’re well into their careers and have access to disposable income,” Chipouras says. “Pair that with stimulus checks, and there’s a massive amount of capital available for those who want to invest in the hobby.”

There’s certainly something to be said about the influence of Covid-19 lockdowns on the growth of the Pokémon TCG market given the timeline of the boom. Last year, fans on Reddit were debating whether or not it was better to wait out the quarantine price surges and availability drops. Many suggested waiting things out, but the hype never really settled down.

Pokémon as a long-term investment may sound about as solid as the recent GameStop stock boom, but it’s more than that. Beyond short-term sales meant to make the most of the current market, periods of Pokémon popularity spikes such as this one strongly suggest that cards can (and often do) retain value. That’s likely a big part of the reason why professional grading service Collector’s Universe was acquired for $700 million by an investment group.

The idea that the current market is being propelled by fans who now have the disposable income to spend on cards really is the most interesting and impactful factor at play, though. It’s a movement that many older Pokémon fans are contributing to, but there’s a specific group of buyers who are clearly leading the charge.

“Influencers [are] coming into the space and exposing, or re-introducing, a huge number of people to the hobby,” Chipouras says. “Not only are they driving prices for the most expensive collectibles in the hobby sky high, they’re also creating highly edited, viral content about doing just that.”

The Celebrity Factor 

In 2017, a man known as Gary “King Pokémon” appeared on Pawn Stars with a collection of Pokémon cards that can only be described as one of a kind.

While he asked for $500,000 for the collection, he insinuated he wasn’t really interested in selling the cards for even that amount. He was right to hesitate. Some of the individual cards in that collection now command prices close to that $500,000 figure.

Cut to 2020 when controversial vlogger Logan Paul decided to visit that Pokémon card trader with $150,000 in cash. After a highly produced spectacle topped off by negotiations, Paul was able to convince Gary to part with one of his Charizard cards. Earlier that month, Paul had posted a video that showed him unboxing a $200,000 box of 1st Edition cards. It’s one of the most notable examples of the kind of slick content that has propelled the market to often absurd heights. 

The role of influencers certainly tracks with the timeline of TCG’s market resurgence. While YouTubers such as Derium and UnlistedLeaf have built careers off unboxing videos, card discussions, and similar Pokémon TCG content, it’s when some of the more mainstream names in the streaming and vlogging world got into the action that we saw prices and popularity skyrocket. Remember that box of cards that Paul bought for $200,000? It’s similar to the one that sold for nearly $400,000 a couple of months later. 

Sadly, that celebrity-assisted boom also unearthed some of the unfortunate elements of the scene. Consider, for instance, the story of Jake “JBTheCryptoKing” Greenbaum who was introduced to many people by Paul as a Pokémon card expert. Some who watched early Paul videos with Greenbaum expressed their concern that he was overvaluing cards either due to a lack of knowledge, a desire for personal gain, or a combination of both. In October 2020, Greenbaum helped the YouTube channel Dumb Money acquire what was described as a box of 1st Edition Pokemon TCG booster packs for $376,000. Shortly into the opening process, it was discovered that the box was fake. Examples of such scams and incompetency have been around for years, but the potential costs are higher than ever. 

Yet, the most prevalent negative impact of the Pokémon TCG resurgence is one that will be all-too-familiar to anyone who has tried to purchase high-profile items online, especially in the last couple of years. 

“One class of purchaser that’s come to the forefront this year are the botters,” Chipouras says. “Even normal collectors who just wait for a product to go live may miss out because the bots can immediately checkout hundreds or thousands of products in seconds.”

Again, the role of scalpers is nothing new, but just as with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X last year, a new generation of bot technology can make online purchases of Pokémon TCG cards from certain outlets nearly impossible. Scalpers and scammers aren’t necessarily misrepresenting the popularity or value of the Pokémon TCG market, but much like the online celebrities throwing unheard of amounts of money at these cards, they are contributing to a raised barrier of entry for more casual collectors who must navigate low inventories, high prices, and delayed productions just to get their hands on a few packs. 

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Yet, it must be said that the role of celebrities and influencers has been far from a universal negative. The publicity generated by their content reminded people of the love they still harbor for the Pokémon TCG scene and gave many a new way to experience a sense of community during quarantine. Stories of such extravagant purchases may make your eyes roll, but they also open your eyes to a movement that is inherently fascinating.

Besides, the pleasure of watching someone open and discover Pokémon cards goes beyond guilt. Dr. Pamela Rutledge of the Media Psychology Research Center says that part of the appeal of unboxing videos can be attributed to our “mirror neurons” which ensure that “people watching someone can experience the same emotions.” Incredibly, they can also trigger “the muscles in your body that would be required if you were trying to open the box.” Those of us who watched one of the many Pokémon TCG unboxing videos over the last year can attest to the unique thrill of that sensation. 

And yes, while there are some celebrities who undoubtedly only got into the scene to follow trends or flex their success, many more are just trying to recapture something important to them — or perhaps make up for lost time. There’s no better example of that than the rapper Logic, who posted these words to his Instagram account shortly after spending $183,812 to acquire a rare Charizard card:

“When I was a kid I absolutely loved Pokémon but couldn’t afford the cards. I remember even trying to trade food stamps for theirs and now as an adult who has saved every penny he has made being able to enjoy something that I’ve loved since childhood now as a grown man is like buying back a piece of something I could never have, it’s not about the material it’s about the experience.”

That’s what we mean regarding the value of nostalgia. It’s not just about money; it’s about our shared emotional investment in these cards and how the money strangely represents it.

Pokémon Party Like It’s 1999

Have you wondered why Charizard pops up so often as the star of the most valuable Pokémon cards? Some of it has to do with the power level of the cards in question and their relative rarity, but the most amusing contributor to their value is the simple fact that people love Charizard. 

In a 2019 poll that saw over 52,000 Reddit users cast a vote for their favorite Pokémon, Charizard was ranked number one. A 2020 poll conducted by the Pokémon Company named Charizard as the fourth most popular Pokémon following an extensive fan voting competition. Numerous outlets have named Charizard the coolest Pokémon or awarded the character similar distinctions. 

The authors of the book Pikachu’s Global Adventure: The Rise and Fall of Pokémon theorize that Charizard may be most popular with older male fans drawn to the character’s comparative toughness and the idea that this evolution cycle represents a departure from childhood. This theory meshes with the comments and demographics of notable top Charizard buyers, but when you get to the heart of it, there’s just something about Charizard’s design that has resonated with Pokémon fans and stayed with them throughout the years. 

There’s also something to be said about the impact of the 30-year nostalgia cycle. As noted by Patrick Metzger in an article for The Patterning, it generally takes about “30 years for a critical mass of people who were consumers of culture” to turn to the art and culture that “helped them achieve comfort and clarity in their world.” More importantly, creators will “indulge in the ‘new’ nostalgic trend that’s being repurposed” in an attempt to “revive that same zeitgeist.” It’s part of the reason why the 1950s were big in 1980s America, why the 1980s were big in the 2010s, and it’s almost certainly part of the reason we’re seeing Pokémon re-emerge in such a big way now. 

It’s not just Charizard either. In the eBay sales report that revealed Charizard was the top-selling Pokémon card, the most popular athlete among sports trading card collectors was none other than Michael Jordan, another legendary figure from the ‘90s who recently experienced a popularity resurgence as a result of the success of The Last Dance documentary series. 

There’s something funny about Charizard and Michael Jordan sharing this pop culture moment. Both were superstars of their era, and both remain the faces of their respective fields: Pokémon and the golden age of ‘90s basketball. 

So before you begin to feel like you’re just caught under the wheels of nostalgia, consider that two of the earliest beneficiaries of what will almost certainly be a prolonged ‘90s revival never really lost value in the first place. We don’t look back on them solely because of nostalgic memories: we look back on them because their greatness never really left us. 

As a kid, you probably tried to justify your Pokémon collection to someone on the basis that it would one day grow in value. It’s not that it wasn’t true (it clearly was) but if you were really only thinking about the monetary value of Pokémon, you would have kept everything in mint condition rather than play with it all. It was really always about much more than that. 

It feels like something similar is happening today. Yes, there are people who purchase Pokémon cards solely as an investment, but there’s a real sense that even some of those fans who talk about these cards as an investment are under the same spell as in the ‘90s. Pokémon cards do often go up in value, but if it’s just about the money, there are better investments out there. On some level, people are “investing” six figures in Pokémon cards because they want a shiny cardboard dragon and they’ve wanted it for a long time. 

That’s the true value of nostalgia. It’s not just about sales themselves but how these cards still make us feel decades later.

The high prices of Pokémon cards don’t speak to us just because they make us wish we’d kept those binders full of cards. Those absurd figures are also an easy way to convey how we felt when we shared the excitement of combing over those cards with friends all those years ago. 

The post How the Pokémon Trading Card Game Boom Brought Back Pokémon Fever appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[cathrynstreich]

12 Tips for Becoming a Successful Real Estate Agent in the Luxury Market

Ever wonder how in the world one becomes a successful real estate agent in the luxury market? You’re not alone.

The luxury real estate market often has an air of “exclusivity” that feels impenetrable if you’ve never sold a listing or helped a buyer in those upper tier price points. And if you’re a brand-new luxury real estate professional, or aspiring to be, you might be asking yourself…

“Do you have to have connections?” 

 “Do you need to have sold a million-dollar listing before you can ‘join the club’?” 

“How do you get your first client if you’ve never sold in that price range?” 

The good news is, like anything, becoming a successful real estate agent in the luxury market is easier than you think when you have the right resources and mindset.

Does it help to have connections and experience? Of course. But even if you have neither, the doors are still open.

The truth is, becoming a successful real estate agent in the luxury market requires just as much effort as becoming a successful real estate agent in the traditional market. The most notable difference, however, is your return on investment.

Both markets require a deep understanding of real estate marketing strategy, the ability to network, and a knack for building meaningful relationships. So, why not go right for the higher price points?

If you’re ready to take the leap, here are twelve tactics to put you ahead of the curve.

When in doubt, co-list.

The biggest barrier to breaking into the luxury real estate market is inexperience, which of course creates a “catch-22” situation.

How do you start selling higher price points if everyone wants an experienced agent?

The answer: co-listing.

When you co-list a property, you’re not only building up your portfolio, you’re also seeing how more experienced luxury real estate professionals handle a high-priced transaction from start to finish.

In other words, you get a hands-on lesson in selling luxury real estate while still making a hefty commission—even if you’re sharing with the agent you’re co-listing with.

The other advantage to co-listing is growing your professional network. You’d be surprised at how many experienced agents are open to co-list, even if you’ve never met them in person before.

Why? Put simply, they’re also gaining commission from the transaction, which creates a win-win situation for the both of you.

Find a mentor.

Yes, this can include co-listing.

However, mentors don’t always have to co-list with you. Maybe your mentor is a luxury real estate coach or a retired luxury real estate agent or someone farther along in their real estate journey who works at your brokerage.

Whomever they may be, having a mentor gives you a major advantage by giving you another set of eyes on your business. This also keeps you from focusing on tasks that don’t move the needle in your business and keeps you from making costly mistakes.

Systemize your follow-ups.

Ever heard the saying, “Your network is your net worth”? That’s especially true when you’re on your way to becoming a successful real estate agent in the luxury real estate market.

The problem is most real estate professionals don’t systemize their follow-ups. Yet, the reality is, it can take years for some leads to turn into sales. In the traditional market, that wait might not result in a huge payoff. But in the luxury real estate market? A few years of nurturing can result in a multimillion-dollar sale.

With that in mind, it makes sense to create touch points with your network on a regular basis—not just when you need the business. Whether it’s once a week or once a month, it’s important to put follow-ups on your calendar and stick to the schedule.

Create a separate marketing budget.

It’s true: when you own the listings, you own the market.

Listing agents in the luxury market enjoy plenty of benefits, from a more predictable schedule to bigger commissions.

But, to own the listings, you have to have a marketing budget.

And the best way to have a marketing budget? Create a separate account just for your real estate marketing.

Keeping your marketing budget separate from your personal budget negates some of the pressure you might feel when you start listing. Clearly seeing your budget for ads, email marketing, print marketing, web hosting and anything else you’re going to spend on lets you know exactly where you stand at a glance.

This also helps you sort your taxes and accurately calculate your return on investment to see what’s working in your real estate marketing strategy and what’s not.

Nurture relationships with vendors.

Successful accountants, lawyers and financial advisors tend to have the same clientele as any successful real estate agent in the luxury market.

So, while it’s important to expand your network with folks who might become future clients, it’s also important to network with professionals whose clientele overlap with your own.

In fact, they should even be included in your scheduled follow-ups and nurtured with as much value as you would give any potential home buyer or seller.

Invest in your online presence.

Wouldn’t it be great if every time you created content, the right people saw it?

These days, most content won’t get seen without paid advertising. That means if your goal is to become a successful real estate agent in the luxury market, you have to invest in your online presence.

Besides paid advertising, you may also want to look into having a real graphic designer, web developer and copywriter help you create a professional website if it’s within your budget.

Automate your business where you can.

Time is money, especially in real estate. Having automated email flows for new and existing leads, pre-scheduled social media, and even automated outreach with the help of VAs and lead generation funnels can save you a ton of time on the back end, while allowing you more time in the field to create meaningful connections.

Never stop learning.

“Continuing education” doesn’t exactly have an exciting ring to it, but the more you learn, the more valuable you become to your clients. And the more valuable you are? The more you earn.

The most successful real estate agents in the luxury real estate market are the ones that never stop learning. They attend events, trainings, read, listen to podcasts and hone their knowledge and skills regularly.

Set goals just beyond your reach.

One thing most successful people have in common is the ability to not only set and reach their goals, but to keep raising the bar. It’s easy to get comfortable after your first few wins, but real success comes from setting goals that feel just beyond your reach.

Once you hit a milestone in your business, it’s important to keep setting goals so you don’t stagnate. In one of our recent Estate of Mind podcast episodes, Michael Lennington talks about planning for business success, and how to set yourself up to have more urgency to reach your goals.

Decide on a niche.

As a new luxury real estate professional, it’s smart to take just about any deal that comes your way. But as you grow and find your strengths, you’ll grow even faster when you double down on what works best for you.

Maybe you like to help new millennial luxury buyers? Or maybe you get along best with “old money” clients? Whatever your niche, be aware of it in your marketing—whether you seek it out yourself or it comes to you with time and experience.

Use both print and digital marketing to your advantage.

In real estate, there’s a tendency to dismiss certain marketing media if they don’t work the first time around. However, nearly any mode of marketing works if your message, brand and offer are dialed in. So, before you decide you’ll only invest in digital marketing or you’ll only invest in print, try both and optimize as you go before you pour more effort into one over the other.

Invest in your Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist

designation.

What if affluent clients were looking for you? When you earn your Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist

(CLHMS) designation, it can happen.

Why?

A CLHMS

designation not only puts you in The Institute’s public Member Directory, it also tells affluent clients that you’re an experienced, knowledgeable marketer who operates within their price point. And really, that’s all most luxury real estate clients want.

Earning your CLHMS

designation starts with becoming an active Institute member, which alone gives you access to a number of done-for-you marketing resources, tools, and an elite network of luxury real estate professionals.

Want More Resources Like These to Grow Your Luxury Real Estate Practice? 

The Institute has a wide range of resources for you to invest in yourself at any stage in your luxury real estate career—even if it hasn’t begun yet.

– Subscribe to our Estate of Mind podcast and/or Estate of Mind video series on YouTube for monthly deep-dives into specialized luxury real estate topics with industry experts

– Take our Luxury Livestream or Luxury Online training to qualify for Institute membership and its many member benefits

– Visit your Membership Portal for brand-new training sessions, as well as our book, “Rich Buyer Rich Seller: The Real Estate Agents’ Guide to Marketing Luxury Homes,” which is available for free to all Institute members and also available on Amazon. 

Diane Hartley is the president of the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing, a premier independent authority in training and designation for real estate agents working in the upper-tier residential market. Hartley brings her passion for luxury marketing and more than 20 years of experience growing and leading businesses to her role as president of the Institute.

The post 12 Tips for Becoming a Successful Real Estate Agent in the Luxury Market appeared first on RISMedia.

12 Tips for Becoming a Successful Real Estate Agent in the Luxury Market published first on https://thegardenresidences.tumblr.com/

[thechasefiles]

The Chase Files Daily Newscap 5/1/2020

Good Morning #realdreamchasers. Here is your daily news cap for Sunday January 5th, 2020. There is a lot to read and digest so take your time. Remember you can read full articles via Barbados Government Information Service (BGIS), Barbados Today (BT), or by purchasing a Sunday Sun Newspaper (SS).

FIREFIGHTERS FUMING OVER RELOCATION PLANS – Firefighters in Barbados are a bit hot under the collar. The officers say they are far from happy with the decision to base them in outfitted containers after the demolition of their headquarters on Probyn Street in The City in the coming months.  Sources, who requested anonymity, said it was not good enough, but Minister of Home Affairs Edmund Hinkson said it was way too early to be upset. “They’re not moving tomorrow and when they do move, I’m sure everything will be in place in relation to health and safety and the laws of Barbados. I don’t see how anyone can make an assessment on what they see today [when they do not know what is going to happen]. . .” (SS)

INNOTECH PLEASED WITH SETTLEMENT REACHED WITH BWA –Innotech Services Limited says it is pleased with the settlement reached with the Barbados Water Authority (BWA). Weeks after Minister of Energy and Water Resources Wilfred Abrahams announced that BWA had reached an agreement with Innotech, which covered a wide range of areas, Innotech’s Chairman Anthony DaSilva said the deal is one both parties could live with. “The Government and Innotech Group, as would be normal in these instances, have agreed that these matters are confidential. But safe to say that the Government feels that they have probably not gotten exactly what they wanted, but Innotech has simply not got also what it wanted, but we both got a deal that we could live with,” DaSilva said. “I think that’s a fair result given both parties looking after their own interest,” He made the comments while delivering remarks at Hope Plantation, St Lucy today where Government commenced its National Tree Planting project to which Innotech donated BDS$25 000. “Barbados is our home base and we have been particularly affected with what’s happening in the economy. We have invested a lot in the Government of Barbados, not in a particular administration, but the Government. And that meant obviously that we had to sit with the Government and negotiate a solution to some of these issues. “I am pleased to say that it has been done. I am not sure that the government or Innotech feels individually that one has taken advantage of the other. And I don’t think that there are any particular hard feelings, it’s just something that had to be done. It’s been done professionally and we have not commented on it up until now,” he added. While the Chairman did not give details on the deal, at the Ministry’s Christmas luncheon at Halton Plantation, St Philip, on December 13, Abrahams revealed that the deal covered the rental and maintenance of the building that houses BWA at Pine, St Michael, the water tanker trucks, the personal tanks programme and portable desal (desalination) units. The Minister said that meetings, negotiations and behind the scenes work by staff within the Ministry, BWA, and Government’s external debt negotiator White Oaks, led to the deal being finalised. DaSilva said Innotech was now at the best place to move forward with Government as a good partner to see economic activity return to Barbados. The Chairman also indicated that while the public arrive at the conclusion that corporate Barbados appear to be insensitive at times, it must be noted that at the end of the day, businesses have employees and commitments to safeguard. “So, I am happy with where we are today. It’s a new year. I think we have cleared last year and I am positive that we are now heading in the right direction,” DaSilva said.  (BT)

PRESCOD WANTS TWO MILLION TREES BY YEAREND –Minister of Environment and National Beautification Trevor Prescod has set a new “ambitious” target for the number of trees he wants Barbadians to plant by year-end.  Last November, Prime Minister Mia Mottley launched the Million Trees for 2020 Project. However at Hope Plantation, St Lucy during a tree planting ceremony yesterday, Prescod stressed that a higher number was attainable. “I want to make the announcement now that we are not going to plant one million trees. We are going to overshoot that target based on the collective presence of all the entities here today [because] I am sure there is a great underestimation of the public’s response to this national project.  “I am going to shoot for two million by the end of 2020. . .  this is an ambitious project and the only thing that can be an encumbrance in this effort is if the national spirit of the people is not moving in harmony with the government,” Prescod said. (SS)

COMPOSER WINS TAX FIGHT OVER FOUR SEASONS – At least one of the 14 villa owners who invested millions of dollars in the failed Four Seasons Barbados project will be able to claim capital gains tax losses in England on their investment. Judge John Brooks recently told the tax tribunal in London that Baron Andrew Lloyd-Webber, 71, and his wife Madeline, 57, should be credited for the “real loss” they suffered when they forked out as much as 20 million pounds for two villas. Lord Webber, a famous composer and impresario had paid a deposit of eight million pounds upfront for the properties, one of which was being sold for nearly £10 (£1 = BDS$2.61) million and the other for more than £7 million. When they first made claims for capital gains tax losses, the HM Revenue and Customs disallowed the claims and the couple filed an appeal.   (SS)

FIRST MURDER FOR 2020 – Barbados has recorded the first murder for 2020, four days into the new year. Nation News understands the man who was shot in an alley last night near Block #1 Nursery Close, Eden Lodge, St Michael, passed away. The shooting occurred around 8:20 p.m. and the victim was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital by private vehicle. (SS)

COACH LIKES NEW ATTITUDE - West Indies head coach Phil Simmons is expecting his players to have a never-say-die attitude in the multi-format series against Ireland which begins on Tuesday. Speaking on the sidelines of the team’s second training session yesterday at the Desmond Haynes Oval, Simmons said he was impressed with the level of cricket the team played in India and was looking forward to them building on it in the upcoming series.  “I am expecting a little more of what I saw in India. The way we played the cricket, the attitude we had on the field and the never-say-die attitude even when India were going well are all things we need to continue doing well.  “I think every series we need to be looking to get that one per cent better in everything we do, so that is what I expect to see from them in this Ireland series,” Simmons told Sunsport. (SS)

ZANE MALONEY IS NSC SPORTS PERSONALITY – Zane Maloney is the 2019 National Sports Council's (NSC) Sports Personality of the Year. The announcement was made on Saturday might by NSC chairman Mac Fingall on Saturday night during the awards ceremony and dinner at the Willdey Gymnasium. Fingall said it was the first time the winner was chosen via an online poll on social media. The 16-year-old Maloney, who created history by becoming the first person from the Caribbean to win the British Formula 4 title, narrowly edged West Windies Test captain Jason Holder, who was ranked No.1 in the ICC Test allrounder rankings for most of 2019. Maloney received 423 votes and Holder 420. Another cricketer, Deandra Dottin, was third with 333 votes. At the Barbados Olympic Association’s Awards last month, Maloney won the President’s Award amd was named Junior Male Athlete of the Year. (SS)

$5,000 PRIZE FOR BSS LOGO COMPETITION –Members of the public are invited to enter the Barbados Statistical Service’s (BSS) logo competition. The design will be used to represent the upcoming Population and Housing Census. Interested persons are invited to submit a design which is creative and legible at the minimum size of three-quarter of an inch and at a maximum size of five inches wide. The logo must include the slogan Our Nation, Our Future, Be Counted. Designs should be submitted to the BSS in sealed envelopes, or by email to bsscensuspublicity@barbados.gov.bb or censuspublicity@barstats.gov.bb by 4:30 p.m. on Friday, January 10. The designs will be reviewed by the Census Publicity Committee and its decision will be final.  The winner of the logo competition will be awarded $5,000. For more information, persons should call the BSS PBX 535-2600, Kimberley Agard at 535-2621, or Lisa Smith at 535-2657. (BT)

There are 362 days left in the year Shalom!  Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram for your daily news. #thechasefiles #dailynewscaps #bajannewscaps #newsinanutshell

[bigyack-com]

What Do Gen Z Shoppers Want? A Cute, Cheap Outfit That Looks Great on Instagram

For every Greta Thunberg and school-skipping climate change protester, there is another member of Generation Z buying inexpensive clothes on a smartphone. Their purchasing choices — fueled by influencer culture and catered to by a new wave of ultra-fast-fashion retailers such as Fashion Nova, PrettyLittleThing and Missguided (responsible for a £1 bikini that sold out in Britain) — are as much about how an outfit will look on social media as in the real world. Three Gen Z shoppers in America, Australia and Britain invited us into their homes to talk about what they buy, and why. All of them work after school or save money to pay for their own purchases. Their interviews have been edited for style and clarity.

‘I Browse Every Single Day’

Mia Grantham is a 16-year-old British high school student studying for her A-levels. She lives with her father and her younger sister, Annie, in Wilmslow, England, a town outside of Manchester. Her bedroom is small but immaculately kept, with a bulb-lit dressing table and pillow shaped like a speech bubble reading “You’ve Got This” on her bed. Mia’s interest in buying clothes ramped up about 18 months ago, when she started getting an allowance and attracting followers on her social media accounts. She has more than 1,500 followers on Instagram, gets around 500 views per story on Snapchat and spends three hours per day on her iPhone XR (about five hours on weekends and during vacation). Her favorite going-out look is a red dress. She owns 14 of them.How often do you shop?I browse every single day — at least once — on the Pretty Little Thing phone app. It’s my favorite, and I don’t look anywhere else, except if I see something on an Instagram influencer I like. My current favorite is Molly-Mae Hague, a star from the 2019 series of “Love Island.” She recently created an exclusive clothing range for PLT, which makes me like the brand even more. Normally I look at shopping apps at the end of the day before bed for about 10 to 15 minutes. But if there is an event coming up that I want a new outfit for, then I could browse for more than an hour. I don’t really go to bricks-and-mortar stores. If I do, I go to Primark. Sometimes H&M. Maybe once a month, probably less.What kind of an event needs a new look?It could literally just be a meal. Or a house party, or a friend’s birthday. It could also be school, where we have a dress code but not a uniform.Why is Pretty Little Thing your favorite fashion brand?I pay £8.99 as part of a yearly subscription, which gives me unlimited next-day delivery on anything I buy. I know all the delivery people really well now — they always know when I have plans on a Friday or Saturday night. I don’t buy from places like Boohoo.com or Missguided as I’d have to pay for delivery, which would be a waste of money. I buy something at least once a week, and my basket value can be anywhere from £5.99 up. Once it was £230. Last week I bought 11 items and sent back three. Seventy percent of the time I send some ordered items back.How many pieces of clothing do you think you’ve bought in 2019?Eighty? One hundred? Those are pieces I’ve kept.What is your favorite piece that you’ve bought, and how many times have you worn it?The ones I probably wear the most are gray leggings that cost £2.50. For going out, I bought a silky red dress with a cutout for a house party. It cost £12.50 from the PLT Shape collection, which is for people like me who have an hourglass figure. I’ve worn it out three times, which is a lot for me. Normally I just wear a dress once.Why only once?Because I’ll normally be in photos when I’m wearing it that are then posted on social media. I wouldn’t really want someone seeing me in a dress more than once. People might think I didn’t have style if I wore the same thing over and over. Style is about changing for whatever the situation you are in and for different events.When do clothes become old for you?Well, things like leggings that you just wear in private around the house you can keep for years. Dresses, when you’ve worn them: twice.Is price important?Of course. If I’m only going to wear something once or twice, I’m going to want to buy the cheapest possible.What else do you look for?Social media is a big consideration. I’m on Snapchat and Instagram, and occasionally Facebook. I take selfies for social media every single time I go out, first in my bedroom and post them online, and then always with friends or my boyfriend, Will, when I’m at the party. More people will see an outfit online than they probably will in real life. I’m on Snapchat the most because of its messenger function, then Instagram, where I have both a public and a private account and spend an hour per day.For IRL, if I see an item I like, normally I’ll search for it on Depop before I buy it so I can see what a real person rather than a model looks like in it. People buy and sell fashion so quickly, I can usually find even the newest things on there. Most of my friends do that too.What constitutes a more special purchase for you?An Oh Polly! dress. I buy them for about £20 from Depop, though new they cost about £40 to £60. Those dresses I keep — I have three of them. Teenagers don’t mind buying secondhand clothes like some older people do: You can get good looks at a cheaper price, or directly swap one dress for another online. I tend to sell lots of the clothes I don’t want in big batches on Depop. It gives me the money to buy new things. I also sometimes take big bags to consignment stores in town, where they give you a bit of money for your clothes depending on how much you bring in.Do you ever think about where those clothes go once you’ve given or thrown them away?No.Do you ever look at where your clothes are made?Yes. I’ve noticed quite a few are made in England, which shocked me. I thought they’d all be made in countries like China, India and Bangladesh. Also, we have been learning a bit in Sociology about how our clothes are made and the working conditions for people who make them. In some countries I know they don’t get very good wages. It’s part of globalization. I wouldn’t talk about it with my friends casually, but we do talk about it in the classroom.What do you think of sustainable fashion?It came on my radar three months ago, I’d say. I am hearing more and more about it because a lot of brands are now bringing out sustainable fashion capsule collections, where clothes are made out of recycled materials, for example. A lot look the same as the normal collection but cost a few pounds more. But if I’m honest, I do think: Why would I pay more, when I can get the same for less?

‘I Don’t Like to Repeat’

Andrea Vargas, an 18-year-old freshman at Hofstra University, loves hunting for sales. She looks for them on websites like PrettyLittleThings and Boohoo, as well as physical stores like H&M and Forever 21, where she can flip through the racks and, occasionally, find gems.“I go shopping when the season sales are on,” she said one Saturday night at her family’s home in Farmingdale, N.Y. She commutes to school and spends most weekend nights out with friends: getting dinner, maybe going to a party or a concert. Her plan for this particular evening was to go to P.F. Chang’s with three girlfriends. Her room is small, with wood floors and inspirational quotes in photo frames on her pale yellow walls. A Billie Eilish poster hangs opposite her bed. A guitar she made out of an old skateboard sits in a corner.Scanning the clothes in her room, she began talking about how she got them. “The back-to-school sales, the fall sales, the summer sales,” she said. “I love sales.”Her absolute favorite piece of clothing is a red plush jacket from Forever 21. She wears it relentlessly when the weather is right. “It’s just so cute,” Ms. Vargas said. “I feel like it dresses up an outfit.”Ms. Vargas pays for her clothes herself, using money she earns by working at Target. The red jacket cost her around $40, and she said it was worth every penny. But, she said, “I feel like there’s no point in spending $40 on a T-shirt. I personally feel like if the quality of the shirt doesn’t match the price, it doesn’t make sense for me to buy it. If a jean jacket costs $60 and I can find it for $20, I’m going to buy it for $20. Especially since I’m in college, I need to buy all these books.”Ms. Vargas guessed she had purchased between 100 and 200 items this year, including shoes and jewelry, and that her wardrobe comprises 500 or 600 total pieces. “I would say the majority of it is shirts,” she said. “They have to be graphic tees. I like a little quote on my shirt here and there. I have yet to buy new jeans. I like a lot of ripped jeans. I rarely buy shoes.”She doesn’t generally check where her clothing is made, and she doesn’t feel guilty about how much of it she has. After she’s done wearing something, it can have a second life. “My mom is from El Salvador and my dad is from Nicaragua,” she said. “They’re not wealthy countries, so I like to give back to people who don’t have a lot. It’s hot there, so I can’t send long sleeves, but I try to send shorts that don’t fit me, things that are still presentable and wearable.”She thinks the right amount of money to spend on clothes is $10 to $15 on tops, and $20-$40 on bottoms. For dresses, which are usually for a special occasion, she’ll go over $40. She estimates she wears each piece 15 times before ultimately donating it or selling it on Depop — but she also doesn’t want to be seen wearing the same thing every day on Instagram.“If I have a shirt in one of my previous pictures I try not to take a picture again in it,” she said. “I don’t like to repeat.”Ms. Vargas had invited her friends over to get ready. Alana Wilson, 18, said that Instagram plays a big role in her shopping life, too. The moon-and-stars earrings that sparkled beneath her hair were purchased off an Instagram ad. Almost all of her clothes are from Fashion Nova.“If it’s cute, it’s from Fashion Nova,” Ms. Wilson said. “Any time I have money I’ll do a whole spree on Fashion Nova. I like it because a lot of IG models have it.”Another friend, Sofia Barbetta, also 18, agreed. “I feel like I find most clothes I want to buy in Instagram ads,” she said. “I don’t even follow that many fashion pages, but I see an ad and I’m like, ‘That’s really cute.’”She unlocked her phone to show some outfits she’d posted on VSCO, a photo-sharing app. “I went through a camo pants phase,” she said of one look. “This outfit, I got inspiration from Twitter.” Ms. Barbetta said she’d gotten very into Twitter lately. She started a Post Malone stan account several years ago, but lately it had become a place to post personal things.An hour after Ms. Vargas began getting ready with her friends, she zipped herself into her outfit for the night: a pair of black platform military-style boots from Target, black and white houndstooth pants, and a black off-the-shoulder top from H&M.“I got this outfit yesterday,” she said. “I was like, ‘This is the outfit I’m going to wear.’”But first, her hair. Ms. Vargas propped her iPhone up in front of her and sat cross-legged in front of her mirror. She pulled Miss Jessie’s Jelly Soft Curls styler through her waves. “I wanted to get one of those vlogging cameras,” she said, “one of the Nikon ones.” For now, she uses her iPhone.Hours later she used it to Instagram a photo of her and her friends posing outside a restaurant in 50 degree weather. They had decided not to go to P.F. Chang’s after all, and were at Taste of Asia instead. None of them were wearing coats.“Trust me we were freezing,” she declared in the caption. But they were all smiling.

‘I’m Dressing to Be Seen’

Nicole Lambert, 20, lives in Sydney, Australia, with her parents and is studying for an undergraduate degree in public relations and advertising at the University of New South Wales. She tutors students on weekdays and works a retail job on weekends. When she has time off, she and her friends like to dress up and hit the festival circuit. On a recent evening, after spending the previous day dancing to EDM, she and her friend Helena Marshall got ready in her bedroom for a more relaxing dinner.We’re not influencers — but … When I’m dressing to go out, I’m dressing to be seen, which is weird to say because we’re not influencers. It sounds shallow, but I think in the back of your head you’re like: I probably should avoid wearing the same outfit twice.At the end of the day, I prioritize the look versus the practicality. And that’s so unbelievable.Working to be cuteMy friend yesterday at this festival had a really cute Tiger Mist top with hearts all over it, but it had off-the-shoulder sleeves. I felt so bad for her the whole day, because she couldn’t put her arms up. But she got cute photos, so it was fine. I know when you put something up on Instagram and it does well, you’re like, “Well, that was a good choice on my behalf.” I love it when people message, “Where did you get that from?��� You know you’ve found something people can’t easily find.Staying relatableI think about what I’m going to post for a decent amount of time. It’s a very curated version of your life. You want to look good in your photo, but have a funny caption so people know you’re down to earth and relatable.That’s why we have private Instagrams, because it gets tiring. That’s where we feel fully free to post whatever. The tragedies of your life. The real me.Keeping it privateOn my main Instagram, people wouldn’t know I’m funny. Because I just overthink what I post: Will people get it? Are people actually going to laugh at that?Sometimes I’ll get a weird feeling where I need to get off social media. I know some people delete their Instagram, like just the app. But that’s admitting to yourself that you have a problem.Leaving shops empty-handedI look for clothes at least once a week usually — either for an occasion, or just as something to do either online or in store. I shop 60 percent online, 40 percent in person. But 75 percent of the time, I’ll go to the shops, have a look around, and not find one thing because I think everything is the same.I’m not afraid to put on something weird. I’m really big into animal print at the moment. Almost to the point where I’ll wear too much of it. I love my snake pants — and flares. Flares should never go out.Princess Polly and Tiger MistFor basics, 100 percent of my wardrobe is from Kookai. They’re always rotating really nice, classic things. I get a lot of stuff off Revolve, because there are so many different brands. You’ve got things there that you’re not going to see five people wearing once you’re out. From other online brands like Princess Polly, Tiger Mist. Sometimes it’s overwhelming how much stuff there is online. I could go on for hours.Often, on Instagram, I’ll scroll through the Explore page, and people just tagging outfits. It’s so helpful because you just click onto the account, find the item. That’s how I find the little niche things.Where were these dresses made?If I feel so amazing in something, I’m probably not going to look too hard into the price. But I don’t like investing a lot of money for something you might not wear too much. I like PrettyLittleThing for crazy things for cheap, because they just do interesting little tops or little dresses, clubbing clothes. Do I look at the labels of clothes? Not really. In the back of my head, I assume that I know where the clothes are made: in China.In terms of how much I would spend: average price of a dress, probably about $180 Australian dollars. Jeans, about $150. A good going out top, $50. I do like a nice pair of heels, so I’ve spent like $200 for a pair. But then again I’ve got ones for $50. In my wardrobe now, I’d say I have roughly 200 pieces.Cycling the wardrobe overseasI do a big spring clean every year and send boxes of clothes over to my family in the Philippines. One of my cousins has a market stall. So I assumed that maybe my stuff would end up there if they didn’t want to keep it for themselves.I would say 30 percent of my wardrobe would get pulled out. Maybe 80 bits of clothes. It makes a good dent.When I pull it all out and you see a big pile of clothes on your floor, you feel a bit sick. I’m glad that I can send it somewhere and it’s helping at least my family.Supporting sustainability — or notI want to support sustainable brands. But if it doesn’t work for me and what I’m doing in my lifestyle, I’m going to go with something else instead.Timing is important. For what I wore to the Listen Out festival yesterday, I ordered on Tuesday morning, it came on Wednesday morning: literally in 24 hours. That means so much to me. I’m the least decisive person and the least patient person. When miniature bags were in, I was obsessed with this one from London. You could get your initials on it. But it said it could take 30 days and I was like, never mind. I got a cute one from Mango.You’re pushing it after seven business days. If it’s a big order I don’t mind waiting for a week. But if it’s one thing, it’s like: Why? Read the full article

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10 Of The Most Successful People With Down Syndrome

10 Of The Most Successful People With Down Syndrome

It’s no secret that people with Down Syndrome are not always fully embraced by society. Even in the wealthiest, most advanced parts of the world, prejudice of this kind continues to persist, and doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. But wherever there is prejudice, there are those who stand up against it, and the following are just 10 examples of people who have torn down barriers and broken glass ceilings for people with Down Syndrome all over the world. See Also: 10 Epic Tales Of Survival Against All Odds 10 Ángela Bachiller—Politician

Ángela Bachiller kicked off her political career in 2011, when she began working at City Hall in the Spanish city of Valladolid. A member of the People’s Party, Bachiller spent over two years working as an administrative assistant in City Hall, before standing for election in 2011. Although Bachiller did not win a seat in that election, placing 18th for 17 available posts, she assumed office two years later when a corruption scandal forced Jesús García Galván to step down. While some may attempt to downplay Bachiller’s success by pointing out that she didn’t win the election outright, it should also be noted that she very well may have, if people with Down Syndrome were allowed to vote in Spain. While there is no outright ban on people with intellectual disabilities voting, Spanish courts usually declare people with Down Syndrome as “incapacitated”. Intended to protect them from fraud and exploitation, such a ruling also revokes their right to vote, making it all the more impressive that Bachiller managed to hold a position when she couldn’t even vote for herself.[1] 9Collette Divitto—Entrepreneur

Even without laws that explicitly forbid them from fully integrating into society, people with Down Syndrome consistently face an uphill battle in trying to do so. Collette Divitto discovered just how true this is when, despite finishing a 3 year cooking course at Clemson University in just two years, job interview after job interview was met with nothing but polite rejection. Hellbent on entering the workforce, Collette took her most popular recipe, “The Amazing Cookie”, and founded Collettey’s Cookies. Initially working with a single grocery store, Collette gradually built up her client base, raising her profile with media appearances on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, GMA, BBC, and more, ultimately leading to a partnership with Lays Potato Chips. Collette now employs 13 people, and hopes to use her platform to reduce unemployment and poverty levels among people with disabilities.[2] 8Jamie Brewer—Actor

Probably the most-famous person on this list, Jamie Brewer is an actor that many of you will recognise from her prominent and recurring roles in the American Horror Story series. Having worked in theatre for over a decade, Brewer skyrocketed to international fame when she made her TV debut portraying Adelaide “Addy” Langdon in the pilot of the hit horror show, and has been a regular fixture ever since. In an interview conducted shortly after season one aired, Brewer said “the most difficult part of playing Adelaide is learning how to portray someone who isn’t always viewed acceptable to her mother and society. This is a new challenge for me”. Since she started on the show, Brewer has worked on a number of TV shows & films, and is currently slated to play Princess Aurora (a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty) in a film series that takes old fairytales and gives a more active role to the leading ladies.[3] 7Marte Wexelsen Goksøyr—Playwright

Born in Norway in 1982, Marte Wexelsen Goksøyr is a public speaker and disability activist, but she is most well-known for her work as a writer—more specifically, a playwright. Her most famous work is her interpretation of Cinderella, which is based on her own life, performed at one of Oslo’s most prestigious theatres, and features live music from the naughties pop band Hellogoodbye. Goksøyr’s work made her the first woman to win The Bjørnson Prize from the Norwegian Academy of Literature and Freedom of Expression, and her version of Cinderella was even used as the basis of a scientific study that examined the differences in attitudes towards disabled actors between adults and children.[4] 6 Judith Scott—Sculptor

Judith Scott (1943-2005) had exactly the kind of childhood you would expect from someone who became a world renowned artist. Judith’s parents chose not to acknowledge her condition, which was compounded by the fact that she had gone deaf, unbeknownst to anyone in her life. At seven years old, Judith’s twin sister Joyce woke up to find Judith had been taken to a care home, where her undiagnosed deafness meant she failed to qualify for any sort of classes at all. Forbidden by their mother to visit Judith, Joyce spent much of her life working with children in need until, after a 35 year battle, she became Judith’s guardian and moved her to another institution. For years, Judith took almost no interest in any of the creative activities available there, until the day a guest teacher came in to give a class on fiber art. Judith immediately took the the art form, taking all sorts of objects and wrapping them in threads and yarn. It was clear that her work went well beyond pure aesthetics, with the director of the institute saying that Judith was “learning to speak”. Much of her work clearly reflects the loneliness & isolation she experienced in childhood, with twins being a major theme as well. After 10 years, Judith was given her first exhibition which, coupled with a book about her work, caught the attention and acclaim of the international art community. She soon became the subject of 4 documentaries in three languages, and to this day has permanent exhibitions in 12 museums across 6 countries.[5] 5Madeline Stuart—Supermodel

Madeline Stuart is a professional supermodel who was born in Australia in 1996. After attending a Brisbane fashion show in 2014, Stuart decided she wanted to be a model and began training. The following year, her mother launched an online campaign, which quickly gathered steam, resulting in Stuart signing 2 contracts in one week. Stuart’s career didn’t stop there, and she quickly racked up quite the collection of accolades, such as walking the catwalk in New York Fashion Week, Paris Fashion Week, London Fashion Week, and various other weeks and shows around the world. Stuart has also been profiled in both Vogue & Forbes, and has completed the Special Olympics triathlon three times.[6] 4Pablo Pineda—DipT BA

Pablo Pineda is an actor and educator most well-known for being the first European with Down Syndrome to obtain a university degree, having completed both a Diploma in Teaching and a BA in Educational Psychology. In 2009, he won the Silver Shell Award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival for his role in Yo Tambien, a film about a university graduate with Down Syndrome. Despite the name, the Silver Shell award is actually the top acting prize at the festival, which is one of only 14 category A film festivals in the world. Upon returning to his native Malaga, Pineda was also presented with the Shield of the City by the local Mayor. Although he still acts, Pineda wants to build a career in education, and is currently working on implementing an international strategy to increase employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Pineda is a regular guest speaker at universities across the world, has written multiple books, and has a TedTalk available to watch online.[7] 3 Sujeet Desai—Musician

Sujeet Desai is a musician from Buffalo, New York who graduated from high school with a 4.3 GPA before graduating from Berkshire Hills Music Academy two years later. All in all, Desai can play seven instruments: Piano, violin, drums, Bb clarinet, Bass clarinet, trumpet, and saxophone. Two documentaries have been made about his accomplishments, and he has received major media attention throughout the years, featuring on shows such as The View, 20/20, The Oprah Winfrey Show, as well as in the Wall Street Journal & New York Times. His greatest accomplishment so far was his 2015 performance at Carnegie Hall, for which he received a standing ovation. Needless to say, Desai has a Pantheon of awards to his name, including a number of Olympic medals. That, along with his musical ability, may be why he was chosen to give a solo performance at the opening ceremony of the 2009 Winter Special Olympics. He currently lives in New York with his wife Carolyn, and is working towards earning a second performance at Carnegie Hall.[8] 2 Karen Gaffney—Athlete

In 1977, Jim Gaffney held his 9 month old daughter Karen, and blew air in her face. Once her lips were closed, he placed her briefly underwater, in the hopes that he could gradually improve her breathing and muscle tone. This unusual idea proved to be a bit of a Moana moment for Karen, who has gone on to enjoy an incredibly successful career as a swimmer. In addition to winning two gold medals in the Special Olympics, Karen was the first person with Down Syndrome to complete the English Channel relay race, but even then her career was just getting started. Since crossing the channel, she has also conquered Boston Harbor, San Francisco bay (16 times and counting), Lake Champlain, Dun Laoghaire Harbor, and the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon. In 2007, she was the focus of the Documentary Crossing Tahoe: A Swimmer’s Dream.[9] 1 Isabella Springmuhl Tejada—Designer

From an early age, Isabella Springmuhl Tejada followed in the footsteps of her grandmother, who was also a designer. As a child, Isabella would create clothes for her dolls, but play eventually turned into work when she enrolled in a fashion course, where she began working on clothes inspired by Guatemalan culture, as well as designs aimed specifically at people with Down Syndrome. Springmuhl had her first big showcase in 2015, where she sold her complete collection. The success of her show garnered international attention, and a second exhibit was quickly set up in Panama. Her momentum continued to build, and in 2016 her designs were shown at London Fashion Week, which was followed by another exhibit in Rome. All of this landed her a spot in the BBC’s 100 Women list, an annual collection of the most inspirational and influential women in the world, alongside the likes of Alicia Keys, Simone Biles, and Zoleka Mandela.[10] About The Author: Simon has entered his final lap of being a 20-something year old, but still loves Irish stereotypes and potatoes.

https://ift.tt/340AbFf . Foreign Articles December 06, 2019 at 11:49AM

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The life and rise of Tim Sweeney, the billionaire CEO and founder of the company behind 'Fortnite,' Epic Games

Tim Sweeney is the CEO and founder of Epic Games, the company that brought the world "Fortnite."

Despite having a net worth of $7 billion, Sweeney enjoys the simpler things in life like Diet Coke and fried chicken from Bojangles'.

Read on to learn about the life and rise of Sweeney as he changes the way the world thinks about video games. 

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. 

Tim Sweeney may seem like your average guy. He likes hiking, tinkering with technology, the occasional Diet Coke, and fried chicken from Bojangles'. 

However, he is anything but average. Sweeney is the CEO of Epic Games, the company behind "Fortnite" — the popular battle-royale-style video game that raked in over $2.5 billion in 2018. Epic Games also brought games like "Gears of War" into the mainstream.

Sweeney has a net worth of $7 billion, millions of which he has donated to forest conservation efforts. 

When it comes to tech execs, Sweeney is one who remains rather low-key. He's single, unmarried, and doesn't have any kids. And he's never been enticed by the flashy trappings of Silicon Valley: Epic Games is based out of Cary, North Carolina, just down the road from Raleigh. 

Sweeney's first-ever job is still his current job, though the responsibilities have changed since founding Epic Games in 1991. Overall, Sweeney describes his life as "simple." If he means a simple life that has also radically changed the way millions of people play video games online, then, sure — a simple life indeed. 

Here's everything you need to know about Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games.

SEE ALSO: The first video games and software programs famous tech CEOs made when they were young

DON'T MISS: These 7 tech CEOs and executives lost millions, along with the companies they helped build

Tim Sweeney, 48, was born in 1970 and raised in Potomac, Maryland, with two older brothers. His father was a cartographer for the US government and his mother took care of Sweeney and his brothers.

Source: Wall Street Journal

When Sweeney was a preteen, he visited his eldest brother in San Diego, California, at a startup he was working at, which had an IBM computer. His brother taught him how to program on it, and Sweeney spent the rest of the rather impressionable trip "just programming the computer, figuring things out."

Sources: Gamasutra, Kotaku

After turning 11, Sweeney spent hours on the Apple II Plus computer his brother gave him and used it to program video games. Sweeney told The Wall Street Journal in an interview that he spent more time "programming than I think I was sleeping or in school or doing any other one thing in the world."

Sources: CNBC, The Wall Street Journal

Sweeney would play Nintendo's "Super Mario Bros." when he was a child as a way to "discover what games were doing and how they were doing it," according to an interview with video game website Kotaku in 2011. Aside from gaming, the inquisitive future CEO would also take apart lawnmowers​, radios, and TVs to see how each gear functioned. He was also a big fan of arcades.

Source: Kotaku

Sweeney attended the ​University of Maryland as a mechanical-engineering major. During his second year of college, he decided to go all-in with gaming by creating his first full-fledged​ video game, "ZZT." He also founded his company, Potomac Computer Systems, which would later become Epic Games, to develop the "ZZT."

Source: Gamasutra, CNBC

Despite being a gifted young coder, Sweeney didn't initially know how to program graphics, like "actual characters and objects," into ZZT. Instead, he used symbols and smiley faces that would attack monsters and "run through levels." The hardware also functioned as an editor, so users could create their own games with it. He released the game in 1991.

Source: Engadget

Sweeney dropped out of University of Maryland just one credit shy of graduating and moved back in with his parents in Potomac when he was 20. He used the $4,000 in his savings and began working on what would later become Epic Games in his parents' garage. For quite some time, customers who were interested in buying a copy of "ZZT" sent checks to Sweeney's parents' house, and waited for a disk copy of the game to come in the mail.

Sources: The Wall Street Journal, CNBC

Sweeney sold "several thousand" copies of "ZZT" while living with his parents. He rebranded his company as Epic Games, a name Sweeney said was "kind of a scam to make it look like we were a big company." With new orders coming in daily, Sweeney was able to move out of his parents' house in 1999 and quit his side-gig, mowing lawns.

Source: Gamasutra

Sweeney then moved Epic Games to Cary, North Carolina, where it still remains. At the start, Sweeney's primary role was still programming, until the release of "Unreal," the company's inaugural first-person shooter video game.

Source: CNBC

"Unreal," which was released in 1998, was a PC-based game that allowed users the ability to play together on separate computers. The 3D graphics technology behind the game was called the Unreal Engine "that has evolved to become the ubiquitous bedrock upon which Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and even iPhone and iPad blockbusters are built," according to Kotaku.

Sources: Business Insider, Kotaku

In 2006, Epic's "Gears of War" was released. It was built upon the Unreal Engine for Microsoft’s Xbox 360. The New York Times described the game as "a more deliberate, thoughtful sort of shooter [with] plenty of action and gore." The publication also called "Gears of War" one of the "best looking" games.

Sources: CNBC, The New York Times, The New York Times

By the release and subsequent success of "Gears of War," Sweeney was 30 years old and beginning to see success. According to an interview he gave to the Journal in 2019, he had a “Ferrari and Lamborghini in the parking lot of my apartment ... People who hadn’t met me thought I must be a drug dealer.” Sweeney has since gotten rid of his sports cars.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

The first "Gears of War" franchise, which included nearly a dozen titles, went on to sell over 22 million units, making over $1 billion in revenue. (Microsoft bought the "Gears of War" franchise in 2014 for an "undisclosed amount.")

Source: CNBC, Gamepedia, Engadget

Epic Games is also responsible for games like "Shadow Complex" and the "Infinity Blade" series, both role-playing fighting games set in past and futuristic time periods. In 2013, Chinese tech company Tencent invested $330 million into Epic Games for a 40% stake.

Sources: Business Insider, CNBC

In 2015, Epic Games announced that the Unreal Engine would be made free, making it easier for any aspiring game developer to start their next project. The technology behind the Unreal Engine is regarded as "one of the most widely used engines in existence." By making the Unreal Engine free to use, Epic Games gets a cut when game developers and publishers sell games made with it — a significant part of the way the company generates revenue.

Source: Business Insider

Epic had revealed a new game it was working on called "Fortnite" in 2011, a survival-style game that Epic pictured as a small, indie title. But Epic didn't start offering early access to the game — at that point, it was simply "Fortnite Save the World," a cooperative shooter — until mid-2017.

Source: Polygon, IGN

Everything changed for Sweeney and Epic Games in September 2017 with the release of "Fortnite Battle Royale" — a free-to-play battle-royale-style version of the game where users "collect resources, make tools and weapons, and try to stay alive as long as possible." The game found worldwide success just a few months after its release, amassing over 200 million players across seven different game platforms.

Source: NBC, Business Insider

Sweeney, however, does not like to take credit for the success of "Fortnite" — he credits it largely to the game developers on his team. The Journal reported, "the entrepreneur is adamant about one thing: He did not create 'Fortnite' — his employees did. He didn't design or program the game" — but he did create the company that did.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Even though "Fortnite" is free-to-play, Epic Games receives revenue from it "entirely from in-game purchases, even though the virtual goods give players no competitive advantage." Character costumes, called "skins," seasonal "battle passes," and accessories can cost up to $10 each. With over 250 million "Fortnite" players, the company made over $2.5 billion from the game in 2018 alone, and over $4 billion since its release.

Sources: Business Insider, Business Insider, Engadget, The New York Times

With the blockbuster success of "Fortnite," Sweeney skyrocketed onto Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index with a net worth of $7 billion. This puts him above other billionaires like George Lucas and George Soros, but well below tech giants Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. Epic Games currently employs more than 700 people.

Source: Business Insider

"Fortnite" has not only made Sweeney a richer man, but many "Fortnite" players as well, including Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, 28, who reportedly made $1 million a month playing the game and streaming it on Twitch (he has now switched to streaming platform Mixer). This past summer, Epic Games also hosted a "Fortnite World Cup" where players could win a piece of a $30 million prize.

Sources: CNBC, USA Today

Read more: This 28-year-old makes $500,000 every month playing 'Fortnite' — here's how he does it

Sweeney is a very casual guy. His workplace attire consists of t-shirts and cargo pants. When people go to an interview at Epic Games, they are advised not to wear a jacket and tie.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Despite having a sports car infatuation at the beginning of his career, Sweeney has since spent his millions on conservation efforts in North Carolina. He bought 193 acres in Alamance County for​ preservation and donated $15 million to protect 7,000 acres of forests in western North Carolina.

Source: Triad Business Journal

source https://www.businessinsider.com/fortnite-maker-epic-games-ceo-tim-sweeney-history-timeline-2019-10

[glovenose82-blog]

Development Update: Friday, December 14

[12/14/18 - 11:23 PM] Development Update: Friday, December 14 By The Futon Critic Staff (TFC)

LOS ANGELES (thefutoncritic.com) -- The latest development news, culled from recent wire reports:

Looking to keep track of all the various projects in development? Click here to visit our signature "Devwatch" section. There visitors can view our listings by network, genre, studio and even development stage (ordered to pilot, cast-contingent, script, etc.). It's updated every day!

ANDI MACK (Disney Channel) - Actor Stoney Westmoreland, who plays grandfather Ham Mack on the series, has been terminated by the network following an arrest "for allegedly trying to arrange online to have sex with a 13-year-old." Said the cable channel: "Given the nature of the charges and our responsibility for the welfare of employed minors, we have released him from his recurring role and he will not be returning to work on the series which wraps production on its third season next week." (Deadline.com)

BLACK TAPES, THE (NBC, New!) - Paul Bae and Terry Miles are looking to bring their podcast - which "follows a journalist's investigations into the unexplained supernatural mysteries caught on tape by a skeptical scientist" - to the small screen at the Peacock. The pair will pen the adaptation alongside Matthew Arnold with Management 360's Guymon Casady and Ben Forkner also executive producing for Universal Television. (Deadline.com)

EMBODY (CBS, New!) - Chai Hecht has sold a potential drama to the Eye in which "after a mission gone wrong renders her permanently blind, a special agent volunteers for an experimental government program that can temporarily transfer her consciousness into someone else's body, giving her the ability to see through their eyes as she infiltrates high-stakes situations and takes down criminals from within." CBS Television Studios is behind the hour with Fulwell 73's James Corden, Leo Pearlman and Jeff Grosvenor serving as executive producers and Hecht as a co-executive producer. (Variety.com)

LAST MAN STANDING (FOX) - Tisha Campbell is set to recur on the series as Chuck Larabee's (Jonathan Adams) wife Carol Larabee. She takes over from Erika Alexander, who played said role in the ABC incarnation and was not available to return. (Deadline.com)

LAST SPY, THE (NBC, New!) - Writer David Guggenheim and director Marc Webb are set to team for a new drama at the Peacock "in which the members of an elite deep cover CIA unit are killed after their real-life identities are exposed. In the aftermath, the only operative to escape the onslaught recruits her own team of former spies and assets to complete their missions while also working to unravel the conspiracy behind who betrayed her friends and colleagues." Imagine Television's Brian Grazer, Francie Calfo and Samie Falvey also executive produce for CBS Television Studios. (Deadline.com)

MY NEXT GUEST NEEDS NO INTRODUCTION WITH DAVID LETTERMAN (Netflix) - The streaming service has commissioned a six-episode second season, due in 2019. (Deadline.com)

SPINNING OUT (Netflix) - Willow Shields has been cast opposite Kaya Scodelario in the upcoming drama series as her younger sister Serena: "While Serena lacks her sister's natural grace on the ice, she makes up for it with discipline and fierce determination. Her complicated relationship with her sister is made up of equal parts loyalty and competition." (Deadline.com)

UNTITLED PEANUTS PROJECT (Apple, New!) - DHX Media has closed a deal to produce new Peanuts content for Apple. First up: "original short-form STEM content that will be exclusive to Apple, featuring astronaut Snoopy." Charles M. Schulz's characters most recently appeared on a short-lived Italian-French-American series that ran on Cartoon Network and sibling Boomerang in the U.S. (Deadline.com)

WHO RULES THE WORLD? (TNT) - Morgan Spurlock has agreed to pay more than $1.17 million to Turner Entertainment Networks to settle a lawsuit over the shelved series. Production on the project, originally announced in May 2017 as an effort to "unpack the most divisive and complicated issues facing women today," was suspended last December after Spurlock himself made a public confession of sexual misconduct. The settlement serves as restitution for not completing the series. (Deadline.com)

[12/16/18 - 08:24 AM] Saturday's Broadcast Ratings: UFC Sparks Demo Victory for FOX The network wins the night among adults 18-49 while CBS is the most-watched broadcaster. [12/15/18 - 08:39 AM] Friday's Broadcast Ratings: FOX Continues Demo Win Streak The network has won the night among adults 18-49 for 12 straight weeks. [12/14/18 - 11:23 PM] Development Update: Friday, December 14 Updates include: Netflix renews "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman"; NBC developing small screen take on podcast "The Black Tapes"; and DHX Media to bring the Peanuts characters to Apple. [12/14/18 - 02:23 PM] Bravo Media's "Married to Medicine" Season 6 Three-Part Reunion Hits a Fever Pitch on Friday, December 21 at 9PM ET/PT The subsequent installments will air Sunday, January 6 and 13 at 9:00/8:00c. [12/14/18 - 01:42 PM] Superstar Recording Artists Jennifer Hudson, Kelly Clarkson, John Legend, Dierks Bentley, Halsey, Marshmello and Bastille, Panic! At the Disco, Brynn Cartelli and More to Perform on "Voice" Finale The season finale will also feature special musical collaborations with the Top 4 finalists, which will be announced soon. [12/14/18 - 12:01 PM] Netflix Picks Up "Bonding" from Rightor Doyle The dark comedy centers on the relationship between former high-school BFFs, Pete, a recently out gay man, and Tiff, a grad student and secretly one of New York City's top dominatrixes, who reconnect in an unexpected way years later. [12/14/18 - 10:03 AM] HBO Films' "Brexit," Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Debuts Jan. 19 This provocative feature-length drama goes behind the scenes, revealing the personalities, strategies and feuds of the Leave and Remain campaigns. [12/14/18 - 10:00 AM] ABC Television Network Orders Additional Episodes of Comedies "black-ish," "The Goldbergs," "The Kids Are Alright" and "Single Parents" for the 2018-2019 Season "Black-ish" has received two additional episodes while the others have been extended by one episode. [12/14/18 - 09:06 AM] Video: Showtime(R) Releases Official Poster and New Teaser for "Black Monday" The 10-episode series will premiere on Sunday, January 20 at 10:00/9:00c. [12/14/18 - 09:05 AM] "Strike Back" Begins Season Six Jan. 25 on Cinemax The show follows the explosive escapades of Section 20, an elite, multinational, covert special ops team, as it spans the globe fighting a vast web of interconnected criminal and terrorist activity. [12/14/18 - 08:23 AM] Thursday's Broadcast Ratings: "Thursday Night Football" Powers FOX Victory The network's last Thursday game of the season delivers top honors in total viewers and adults 18-49. [12/14/18 - 08:03 AM] Video: "Russian Doll" Season 1 - Date Announcement - Netflix From Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland comes "Russian Doll," February 1 on Netflix. [12/14/18 - 08:01 AM] DC Universe: The Ultimate Holiday Binge-Watching Destination Anchored with the Season Finale of Original Series "Titans" on December 21 97% of members have watched the exclusive original "Titans." [12/13/18 - 11:22 PM] Development Update: Thursday, December 13 Updates include: CBS revealed to have settled sexual harassment case with Eliza Dushku; Logan Lerman in talks to lead Amazon's "The Hunt"; and Jennifer Garner, J.J. Abrams to re-team for Apple's "My Glory Was I Had Such Friends." [12/13/18 - 03:14 PM] Red Nose Day Returns to NBC for Fifth Year with a Special Night of Programming on Thursday May 23, 2019 In 2019, the multi-week fundraising campaign will culminate on Red Nose Day, Thursday, May 23 with a three-hour block of Red Nose Day-themed programming on NBC.

Source: http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/2018/12/14/development-update-friday-december-14-616215/12762/

[rickhorrow]

15+5+5 To Watch 72919

15 TO WATCH/5 SPORTS TECH/POWER OF SPORTS 5: RICK HORROW’S TOP SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF JULY 29 with Jacob Aere

Forbes named the most valuable franchises in sports, led by the Dallas Cowboys, who for the fourth consecutive year landed atop the list. The study values the Cowboys at $5 billion, with the Yankees second on the list at $4.6 billion, and Spain’s Real Madrid in third with a valuation of $4.24 billion. Rounding out the top ten are Barcelona ($4.02 billion), the Knicks ($4 billion), Manchester United ($3.81 billion), the Patriots ($3.8 billion), the Lakers ($3.7 billion), the Golden State Warriors ($3.5 billion), the New York Giants ($3.3 billion), and the Dodgers ($3.3 billion). The NFL dominates the overall list with 26 teams in the top 50. A major contributor was the league’s lucrative media rights deals with CBS, NBC, Fox, ESPN, and DirecTV, which saw each team receive more than $260 million last year. Way behind the NFL was the NBA, which had nine teams on the list. Eight European soccer clubs made the list, as did seven MLB franchises. Cowboys owner and Sport Business Handbook contributor Jerry Jones has been credited with driving up the franchise’s value since purchasing it for $150 million in 1989.

The cost of the Raiders' new Vegas stadium has risen to $1.9 billion. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal (LVRJ), the Las Vegas Stadium Authority has reportedly approved $40 million worth of additions to the build, including 20 more suites and a field-level club area near the venue’s north end zone. The LVRJ report added that close to $1 billion has so far been spent on the construction of the 65,000-seat stadium. The new venue is expected to be ready for the 2020 season, when the Raiders are scheduled to relocate from Oakland to Las Vegas. The construction project, of which $750 million is being funded by taxpayers, has now passed the halfway stage, with the next major task being the installation of the cable steel roofing system that will support the stadium’s translucent roof. The latest update comes a month after the franchise appointed AEG Facilities to operate the new stadium. Right now, the Raiders are reluctantly in the spotlight as HBO’s “Hard Knocks” documents their every move during NFL preseason camp.

As NFL teams settle into training camp, Patriots legend Tom Brady sits at No. 1 on the NFLPA Top 50 players sales list, while new Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray is the highest rookie on the list at No. 21. The first list of the 2019 season, according to the NFLPA, is based on total sales of all officially-licensed NFL player merchandise, tracking year-to-date preseason results from March 1 to May 31. The NFLPA list is the only verified ranking of all officially licensed, NFL player-branded merchandise sold from online and traditional retail outlets as reported by more than 75 NFLPA licensees. Additionally, Fox Business noted the Browns’ Odell Beckham Jr., who ranked second in sales overall, was the NFL's "top-selling player in terms of jerseys manufactured by Nike, the league's official uniform supplier." Brady "ranked third in that category.” Also high on the list – Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield.

Lovers of the made-for-TV Skins Games of the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s, rejoice. According to ESPN.com, Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, and Hideki Matsuyama are rekindling the series, with the first event taking place before the inaugural Zozo Championship at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club in Japan on October 21. The Zozo Championship was Woods’ first official commitment following his historic Masters victory in April. The one-day Skins competition will reportedly offer “lucrative prize money.” The event, which will be run and sanctioned by the PGA Tour, harkens back to The Skins Game series that ran 1983-2005. The upcoming event is also reportedly part of Woods’ content agreement with GolfTV; negotiations are currently taking place to televise the event in the U.S. The Zozo Championship is the second leg of a three-tournament Asia swing on the 2019-2020 PGA Tour schedule that includes CJ Cup in South Korea and the WGC HSBC Champions in China. The Zozo Championship features a 78-player field, no cut, and a $9.75 million purse. 

It’s official – Colombia has its first official Tour de France win. Columbian Egan Bernal left his mark on the Tour de France in the mountains and in the record books, at 22 becoming the youngest Tour winner since the World War II. NBC Sports also clocked some firsts – throughout this year’s event, NBC Sports Group provided U.S. cycling fans with a deeper look at the action than ever before. The Peacock deployed several new production tools for its coverage of the 21-day race, including, for the first time, live feeds from POV cameras mounted on several competitors’ bicycles. NBC Sports’ studio production had another new tech toy in its arsenal this year: an augmented-reality graphics and telestrator system developed by Israel-based Morpheus, which produces virtual cyclist graphics. Live Tour de France coverage on NBCSN averaged 307,000 viewers through last Sunday’s Stage 15 – the highest since 2015, and up 11% from last year at this point in the competition. In two years, the Tour will have a fresh look as well, as in 2021 it will begin in bicycle-mad Copenhagen for the first time in its 100+ year history.

World Cup star Alex Morgan looking to launch female-focused media venture. Morgan, co-captain of the USWNT and World Cup champion, is planning to launch her own media venture focused on storytelling, specifically content for girls created by female athletes. The unnamed project is one of many off-field pursuits for the 30-year-old, recently named one of TIME's 100 most influential people. Morgan has written a series of children’s books about soccer called “The Kicks,” and last year acted in her first movie, a sports comedy called “Alex & Me.” Her sponsors include Nike Inc., Coca-Cola Co., AT&T, and Secret, a deodorant brand owned by Procter & Gamble. Morgan reportedly isn’t planning to launch it in partnership with any major media companies – rather, it’s part of a larger push by women on the team to advocate for gender equality in sports and beyond. “We’re authentic to who we are and what we stand for, and we’re becoming more brave and comfortable in our own skin,” Morgan said. This latest venture shows how the women of the USWNT can continue to use their championship platform to speak up about important issues. 

Although he didn’t prevail, racing at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course was still a win for IndyCar driver Zach Veach. Stockdale, Ohio native Zach Veach is still searching for that elusive first IndyCar win. But as the Mansfield News Journal pointed out, Veach, “in his second full season behind the wheel of an IndyCar, racing for Andretti Autosport…is still looking for the checkered flag, but there is plenty of time left in what looks to be a very long career behind the wheel.” Veach’s work off the track makes him a compelling public figure. In 2010, when he was 16, he made CNN's list of most intriguing people for his role as national spokesperson for FocusDriven, an initiative to fight distracted driving. His newest venture is with EverFi, an education initiative to help kids learn life lessons through sports. Veach also “has a ton of success over his career at Mid-Ohio.” During his three-year Indy Lights Series run, Veach had five Top 5 finishes at the track. While that didn’t come to pass this weekend, the confident, talented young driver considers the event a win for his family, his friends, and primary sponsors Group1001 and Gainbridge.

James Harden has joined the ownership group of MLS club Houston Dynamo. According to Front Office Sports, Harden has acquired a 5% stake in the Dynamo, which carries an overall valuation of more than $475 million. Harden, who in 2017 signed a then-NBA record $228 million dollar contract extension with the Houston Rockets through the 2022-2023 season, becomes the fifth member of the ownership group, which also owns the National Women’s Soccer League’s (NWSL) Houston Dash and BBVA Stadium. The group is led by Mexican businessman Gabriel Brener, who acquired control from AEG in 2015. The other members of the group are Ben Guill, Jake Silverstein, and former boxing world champion Oscar De La Hoya, all of whom are expected to continue their involvement after the basketball player’s investment. Harden said, “Houston is my home now, and I saw this as a way to invest in my city and expand my business interests at the same time.” On the pitch, the Dynamo sit two points behind the playoff positions in MLS’s Western Conference, while the Dash are five points off the pace for a spot in the NWSL’s final series.

The Oklahoma City Thunder partnered with the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum to unveil their new City Edition uniforms, a "charcoal and gold Nike uniform [that] pays respect to those affected" by the 1995 bombing there. The Oklahoman reported that it has "long been a Thunder tradition to bring each player to the memorial when he joins the team," but now the team will "put its own imprint on the museum." The team "plans to underwrite a permanent exhibit that will focus on the 'Oklahoma Standard.'" The "three values associated with that standard -- service, honor and kindness -- are also printed above the City jersey’s tag." In addition, a time stamp "appears under each: 9:01, the minute before the bombing, and 9:03, the minute after." The "survivor tree, a 90-year old elm that withstood the blast, appears on the waist band of the shorts." The Thunder also "pledged to fund free admission to the museum once a month" during 2020. The jerseys – a touching way for basketball fans to honor those lost in the tragedy almost 25 years ago – will be available to purchase at a later date.

A new report by MVPindex shows the NBA’s latest season brought notable increases in the league’s social media footprint and brand value. The report shows a 132% increase in the NBA’s collective social media footprint during the 2018-2019 campaign, with league and team accounts collectively generating more than $1.1 billion of value for brand partners, up 20% from $921 million 2017-2018. By comparison, the NFL last season generated $343 million in brand value, the second-highest social media value among the top leagues. Among the various social media platforms, Instagram proved most valuable to brands, generating about 90% of the total brand value while accounting for only 10% of the NBA's total social media content. The NBA patch program is also driving activations, with seven team patch partners among the top 25 of the league’s top social media activations. “The smart teams are activating around moments along with scores and highlights,” said MVPindex co-Founder and CMO Kyle Nelson, also a Sport Business Handbook contributor. The team with the most social media engagement was the Warriors with 291 million social media engagements, followed by the Lakers with 147 million.

Williamson signs landmark deal with Jordan Brands. Pelicans forward Zion Williamson's deal with Jordan Brand is for seven years and $75 million, according to a source cited by Forbes. In DC, The Washington Post notes for "comparison purposes," LeBron James signed a seven-year, $87 million deal with Nike in 2003. Williamson "arrives in the league as arguably the most-hyped prospect since James." Rockets guard Russell Westbrook and Thunder guard Chris Paul "have signature lines with Jordan Brand, but as an ascendant superstar, Williamson can quickly become the face of the brand." ESPN reported Williamson "ultimately turned down a higher offer from Puma" and as much as $15 million annually from Chinese brands Li-Ning and Anta "in order to wear Michael Jordan's brand." Williamson could see also his already impressive social media following expand after signing the Jordan Brand deal. Jordan has 33.1 million total followers, with 55% of those on Instagram. Williamson became a social media juggernaut due to his high school and college exploits, amassing almost four million Instagram followers and 390,000 on Twitter. Clearly, this sneaker lace up is a win-win for Williamson and the Jordan Brand.

Women’s Wear Daily reported Vineyard Vines has signed a deal with the Premier Lacrosse League to become its "official style partner." Vineyard Vines will "create exclusive product that will be available for purchase" during the current 2019 season as well as the 2020 season. It will "consist of PLL T-shirts and Shep shirts for men, women, and children that will be sold on the league’s web site." The deal "includes Vineyard Vines activations in each of the league’s 13 major-market cities that will include branded signs, on-field half-time entertainment for fans and T-shirt giveaways.” Vineyard Vines, which recently wrapped up a massive collaboration with Target that is thought to have helped revive the classic but aging brand, previously partnered with Peyton Manning, Manning’s Nationwide ad campaigns, and has outfitted golf announcing legend Jim Nantz. The PLL deal seems to be right in line with Vineyard Vines’ preppy image, albeit for a younger sports generation. 

Outland Trophy finds presenting sponsors again. The Outland Trophy - awarded to college football’s top interior lineman - will have presenting sponsors again, in 2019. The Football Writers Association of America and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases announced that they plan to partner on a public awareness campaign bringing attention to the importance of flu prevention. Selected by FWAA, the trophy is awarded annually to the top interior lineman in college football. As part of the public awareness campaign, the Outland Trophy presented by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases will use the hashtag #FightFlu on all advertising, marketing, social media, and public relations materials. The 2019 Outland Trophy presented by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases will be awarded during ESPN’s The Home Depot College Football Awards on December 12. While this may seem like an odd alliance for a football award, it exemplifies the power of sports as a vehicle for widespread messaging and the commitment of collegiate and pro sports alike toward public service campaigns.

Nasdaq makes a bet on sports gambling. The New York-based stock-exchange group announced a deal with UK betting platform Football Index to help build its trading platform using tools similar to those Nasdaq uses on traditional stock exchanges. The four-year-old, privately held Football Index launched a virtual “stock market” in 2014 in which participants buy shares in star players like Lionel Messi or Harry Kane. The site provides a mix of fantasy sports and regular sports betting with elements of stock market speculation. The Football Index deal will be the first in which the Nasdaq brand will be visible to gambling customers. Nasdaq has other sports-betting clients including the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which has a monopoly on the Chinese territoryʼs sports-betting market. It also has an agreement to provide betting technology for the horse racing unit of Australiaʼs Tabcorp, a lottery and gambling giant. In both those cases, Nasdaq has supplied back-end technology but its logo and branding did not appear on any consumer-facing products. Football Index says the ultimate goal is to create “recreational markets for retail traders in something they understand a lot better than” traditional financial instruments, such as currencies.

Nike, Nickelodeon join forces in a pineapple under the sea. Nike and Viacom Nickelodeon Consumer Products have launched the Kyrie x SpongeBob SquarePants collection, available August 10. The collection features five shoes inspired by the signature characters from SpongeBob SquarePants, as well as apparel and accessories including T-shirts, a hoodie, socks, and backpacks. According to the official release, NBA superstar Kyrie Irving’s latest collection “is suited for on-court competition and off-court jellyfishing.” The sneakers in the collection showcase the signature Kyrie 5 silhouette in bright yellow for SpongeBob, pink and green tones for Patrick, and turquoise accents for Squidward. The low-cut silhouette of the Kyrie Low 2 pays homage to the currency-crazy crustacean, Mr. Krabs, as well as a Sandy Cheeks version with colors inspired by the squirrel’s space suit. SpongeBob SquarePants, one of the most iconic TV series ever created, has impacted pop culture with its universe of beloved characters. The title character has also influenced the worlds of fashion and streetwear with recent collaborations, including Moschino, Lisa Frank, Marlou Breuls, and Chinatown Market. This year marks SpongeBob’s 20th anniversary, off the court and on.

Top Five Tech

The PGA Tour adds DraftKings as its daily fantasy sports (DFS) partner in a multi-year partnership. According to Golf Channel, DraftKings offers a DFS golf game where contestants in most U.S. states can wager real money to compete for cash prizes. The typical game setup requires participants to submit an entry fee and choose a fantasy roster of six players for each tournament while staying within the guidelines of a designated salary cap. The new partnership began during the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, with PGA Tour-related prizes to be added to the cash offerings available to top finishers. The Tour will also make available real-time video highlights of rostered players for DraftKings participants among other specific content offerings, similar to video offerings now available around other fantasy leagues. By moving golf into the DFS format with DraftKings, the sport may be able to pick up new and younger fans who wager on live tournaments.  

Odell Beckham, Jr. is launching a production company and YouTube Channel. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the NFL superstar is changing up more than just his longtime New York Giants outfit this offseason. The new Cleveland Browns wide receiver has launched his own media outfit, ITN Productions, as part of a pact with Wheelhouse Entertainment. To start his new productions, Beckham will launched his YouTube channel to offer an off-the-field look into his life. The new YouTube platform will add to the wide receiver’s hefty social media presence with 13.4 million Instagram followers and another four million on Twitter. Looking to current NBA superstars with production companies like LeBron James’ SpringHill Entertainment and Stephen Curry's Unanimous Media, it looks like OBJ is on the right track to set himself up for long term success.

The Fortnite World Cup has appointed IMG to manage distribution and media production. The Epic Games event was hosted July 26-28 at the 23,000 capacity Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York City. According to Esports Insider, the tournament featured several separate events including the Creative championship, solos and duos finals, as well as the Celebrity Pro-Am.  The total prize pool for the tournament was $30 million, with the winners of both the solos and duos competitions taking home the top prize of $3 million each. IMG delivered all content via an encoded stream from its IMG Studios production facility in the UK and The Finals was broadcast live on Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and within the game itself (via the Watch Live button when you log into Fortnite). Sport 24 Extra, IMG’s in-flight sports channel, also presented the Fortnite World Cup live during international flights on select airlines. Bringing IMG Media on-board is a smart move from Epic Games, as it will continually allow them to reach a multitude of worldwide audiences on social media and even up in the sky.

NASCAR, NBC, and iRacing team up to deliver eNASCAR on NBCSN. According to Sports Video Group, this is the first ever eNASCAR live event on television. The world’s best NASCAR iRacers will compete in the event on TV as part of “NASCAR America” and will later return to “NASCAR America” on NBCSN on the last Thursday of each month in a four-race series. In the online simulation racing game, competitors race head-to-head from around the world. More information on the three future iRacing events on NBCSN will be revealed in the coming weeks. In addition to the eNASCAR iRacing All-Star events being broadcast on NBCSN, iRacing and NASCAR also have a professional esports series known as the eNASCAR PEAK Antifreeze iRacing Series, where global drivers compete for more than $100,000 in prize money in a year-long championship. NASCAR’s aging audience may get a younger boost with a heavy dose of esports while real life racers have transitioned to notable esports team owners including NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr. and other racing stars Clint Bowyer and Austin Dillon. 

MLS’ Los Angeles Football Club is using tech for food and drink orders at home matches. According to the Los Angeles Times, LAFC and Satisfi Labs have partnered up to expand their virtual assistant platform, Olly, with Apple Business Chat to offer a new system for fans to communicate directly with food and beverage vendors at their home venue, Banc of California Stadium. Fans will be able to order food and drinks from their seats and pick them up at their convenience using the Messages app on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac – but not Android. To start an Apple Business Chat to order ahead, fans open the camera on their Apple device to scan a QR code found around the stadium. A conversation with Olly will open immediately in the Messages app, and then the user can respond in their own time frame for a pickup location and finalize the purchase with Apple Pay. The food and drink options will always be changing depending on what LAFC wants to experiment with and what fans are demanding – allowing for a more pleasurable, convenient fan experience.

Power of Sports Five

MLS WORKS showcases the soccer league’s philanthropy during 2019 All-Star Week. According to Orlando City FC, MLS’ philanthropic group is rolling out a slate of community-focused initiatives and events in the Orlando area for the MLS All-Star Game on July 31. MLS will offset a portion of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with All-Star Week festivities by purchasing 2,600 carbon offsets from a clean cookstove project in Africa. Supporting the Orlando City Foundation’s commitment to urban agriculture, MLS will invest in a community garden as part of the MLS WORKS + Target All-Star Community Day. And in partnership with Fleet Farming and their Edible Landscape service, a garden will be installed at Neptune Middle School. MLS will also provide funding for South Street Urban Farm’s education program in the Parramore area of downtown Orlando. The charity arm of MLS will also team up to combat hunger and support the Special Olympics as the MLS All-Stars take on La Liga’s Atletico Madrid.

Wasserman Media Group launches The Collective with $1 million for women in sports. According to Philanthropy Women, Wasserman unveiled its new program July 13 and the Collective will offer resources for female-focused initiatives, utilizing the full reach of Wasserman entities to support business and client campaigns. Among the Foundation’s grant recipients are Women in Sports and Events (WISE) and the City of Los Angeles’s Evolve Entertainment Fund. Currently, Wasserman represents 56% of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, 26 WNBA players, and “a number of women Olympians who have won a total of 37 gold medals since 2010.” Representing some of the top women in sports such as Megan Rapinoe, Abby Wambach, Mia Hamm, and Katie Ledecky, Wasserman Media Group has furthered its commitment to increasing the prominence of top female athletes.

LA Galaxy and Chevrolet team up to launch the Chevrolet Charity Challenge. According to LA Galaxy, The LA Galaxy Foundation, Chevrolet, and players from the club have teamed up to launch a competition to raise awareness and donations for local Community Partners. Eight LA Galaxy players will compete and be rewarded for completing designated tasks at upcoming games and their earnings will go to charity. For every pass completed, tackle, duel won, meter covered, clearance made, and cross completed, the LA Galaxy Foundation will donate up to $1,000 to a local Community Partner. The eight community partners include Garden School Foundation, Playworks, Make-A-Wish: Greater Los Angeles, The Mission Continues: Reporting for Duty in Your Community, SurfRider Foundation: Los Angeles, Gift of Life, Special Olympics Southern California, and Positive Coaching Alliance: Los Angeles. Fans of the game were also encouraged to support community partners by making their own donation to the partner of their choice during the club’s July 24 home match. 

Kevin Durant helps to send kids from Prince George, Maryland to college. The newly-signed Brooklyn Net has opened the Durant Center, an educational facility in his hometown. According to BET, the Kevin Durant Charity Foundation has committed $10 million over the next decade in a partnership with Prince George’s County Public Schools and College Track to help minority low-income high school students earn a college degree. The Durant Center is the first College Track center on the East Coast, with the inaugural class of the Prince George’s county program totaling 69 students of color. Enrolled students attend the center after school for tutoring and advising where they are taught life skills, including time and stress management. Last year, Durant donated $3 million to University of Texas Austin, in addition to supporting organizations like the Tulsa Dream Center, Larkin Street Youth Services, and Black Girls Code in San Francisco, and was named ESPN’s 2018 Humanitarian of the Year. This only builds on his philanthropy track record.

The Tom Hatcher charity golf tournament raises nearly $100,000. Six years ago, Tom Hatcher had no idea what he was starting when he decided to organize a charity golf tournament. According to The Daily Times, Hatcher is the circuit court clerk for Blount County, Tennessee and was moved to action by his father, who was in the midst of a five-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. At this year’s tournament, more than 300 golfers competed for two causes close to Hatcher’s heart. The sixth-annual event raised roughly $100,000, which will be split up and donated to Alzheimer’s Tennessee, Inc. and the Blount County Boys & Girls Club. The total donations have increased every year, with Hatcher’s inaugural tournament raising $23,000 in 2014. This one’s total bested last year’s by roughly $20,000. By mixing politics, sports, and charity, Hatcher continues to see growing success in raising funds and awareness for the Boys & Girls club as well as Alzheimer’s Tennessee.

[caveartfair]

These 20 Women Are the New Faces of Photojournalism

The visual stories populating major newspapers and magazines have historically been chosen, assigned, and told by men. But more and more, the tide is shifting, with the belief that a variety of voices means richer perspectives on world events.

Today, young women comprise the majority of students in college-level photojournalism and documentary programs. Women have climbed the ranks and lead the photo departments at major publications like the New York Times, Time magazine, and National Geographic. Photographers, fed up with the excuse that photo editors don’t know enough contacts outside of their networks, have spearheaded databases like Women Photograph, Diversify Photo, and Native Agency to offer up more voices in the industry. Still, the gender gap persists: Last year, Women Photograph reported that in half of the major newspapers it analyzed, women only made up single-digit percentages of lead photo bylines. And while many publications are assigning more stories to photographers of different backgrounds, wire agencies—who supply breaking-news images to all major outlets—seem far behind.

Here, we present 20 female photojournalists and documentary photographers who are on the rise. Each of them herald change to the field in their visual style, unique perspective, and focus on underrepresented topics.

A young man turns to run away from the National Bolivarian Police during a demonstration in support of interim president Juan Guaidó in El Paraíso, Caracas, Venezuela, on January 30, 2019. Photo by Andrea Hernández. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:

“The Nightmare in Venezuela Finally Has the World’s Attention. Can the Opposition’s Gamble Pay Off?” Time, February 2019“Short of electricity, food and water, Venezuelans return to religion,” Washington Post, April 2019

Andrea Hernández compares the first time she held a camera in her hands to the first time Harry Potter handled a wand at the Ollivanders wand shop. “[It was] as if it had chosen me,” she said.

Hernández began her career as a text journalist for El Estímulo, an online publication based in Caracas, Venezuela, after graduating with a degree in journalism. A photographer for the past three years, she has contributed stories largely about her home country to publications including BuzzFeed News, the Washington Post, and El País. This year, she was named one of PDN’s “30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch.”

Wendrys Hernandez, 12, floats in a well where she bathes every afternoon in San Isidro, Caracas, Venezuela, on April 16, 2019. Photo by Andrea Hernández. Courtesy of the artist.

Roxy Guerra carries her daughter after bathing her in a well in San Isidro, Caracas, Venezuela, on April 16, 2019. Photo by Andrea Hernández. Courtesy of the artist.

Yuri Chacon, 37, sits on her children’s bed after she leaves them at school in San Isidro, Caracas, Venezuela, on September 26, 2018. Photo by Andrea Hernández for the Washington Post. Courtesy of the artist.

A boy moves on top of the debris from a fire in San Isidro, Caracas, Venezuela, on February 18, 2019. Photo by Andrea Hernández. Courtesy of the artist.

An unoccupied bed at the University Hospital in Caracas, Venezuela, on November 19, 2018. Photo by Andrea Hernández. Courtesy of the artist.

A man holds a molotov during a protest at El Paraísoin Caracas, Venezuela on January 23, 2018. This was one of the first of a series of demonstrations in support of Interim President Juan Guaidó and against dictator Nicolás Maduro. Photo by Andrea Hernández. Courtesy of the artist.

What drives Hernández is the profound gap in Venezuela between those with power and those without. She is interested in exposing not only the corruption, but also the kindness this disparity engenders. She recently captured a woman who feeds an entire community of children from her home using scant resources. “The simple act of giving me a hot plate of food startled me,” she said.

Ultimately, Hernández would like photography to help heal the divided country. “I hope that respectful and powerful work will spread empathy, and eventually tolerance will come along,” she said.

Irene Sonia, 17, wants to become a bank accountant, but in Bidibidi refugee camp they do not have the right subjects in school. Her mother, Esther, has been fighting for better education in the refugee settlements to provide their kids with a better future when the war in South Sudan is over. Photo by Nora Lorek. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:

“In Uganda, a unique urban experiment is under way,” National Geographic, April 2019

“See the ingenious toys made by refugee children,” National Geographic, December 2018

Nora Lorek believes that there are more ways to show the reality of war than to cast those who live through it as victims. Photojournalists have a responsibility to show them as survivors, too.

“To me, it’s striking to see the strength of the women from South Sudan who’ve fled civil war up to four times,” she said. “But a sad face still seems to sell better than the face of a proud woman, happy for the life she’s built up after surviving another war.”

Farida Sunday, 35, and her one-month-old daughter Blessing Happy, born in Bidibidi Refugee Settlement. In August 2017, the one millionth refugee from South Sudan entered Uganda to escape the war. Bidibidi, with more than 270,000 people, is considered one of the world’s largest refugee settlements. Photo by Nora Lorek. Courtesy of the artist.

Rebecca Ameri, 75, with her grandchildren in the Bidibidi refugee camp. “I’m here with my 35-year-old daughter who lost her husband,” Rebecca said. “She has eight kids and collapsed of Malaria yesterday and was taken to the hospital. I had twelve children, of which six died. Five are still in South Sudan.” Photo by Nora Lorek. Courtesy of the artist.

Lea Kadi, 67, makes bags of coffee to sell to neighbors. A small bag of coffee is sold for 500 UGX (Ugandan Shilling), and in the end she earns 2000 UGX (less than one dollar) a week. In South Sudan, she worked as a midwife in Yei Hospital for 35 years. Now she’s going blind but is happy to have her daughter, Emelda, take care of her. Photo by Nora Lorek. Courtesy of the artist.

Susan James, 10, holds her clay doll. According to UNHCR, 83% of the refugees fleeing South Sudan are women and children. Leaving their homes suddenly, the clay phones, trucks, and dolls they make become the children’s only toys. Photo by Nora Lorek. Courtesy of the artist.

A phone made out of clay by Julius Caesar, 8, from South Sudan in the Bidibidi refugee camp in Uganda (left). Gottfried Ataba, 6, from South Sudan uses a water pipe to sing for his friends (right). Photo by Nora Lorek. Courtesy of the artist.

Martin Salah, 11, shows his toy car made out of food boxes in Bidibidi Refugee Settlement in Uganda (left). Simon Ayole, 13, shows his clay doll with strands of braided hair (right). Photo by Nora Lorek. Courtesy of the artist.

Lorek, who has been freelancing since 2016, joined the agency Panos Pictures in 2017. As a photographer focused on human rights and migration, she sees inequity in her own status—a German migrant who sought citizenship in Sweden—and the refugees she has photographed. “Why should we…be able to move around the world while others are stuck between borders, not knowing if they’ll ever see their home again?” she asked.

Lorek goes beyond her role as a photographer: Her portrait series of South Sudanese women in front of their embroidered milayas—which they carried to Uganda while fleeing war—garnered so much interest that she co-founded the nonprofit Milaya Project to help refugee women in the Bidibidi settlement sell their crafts online.

A homeless man poses for a portrait in Mbale, Uganda, on July 24, 2015. Mbale District has a high rate of homeless children, and access to clean water, food, medical services, and education are often lacking. Photo by Esther Ruth Mbabazi. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:

“Diagnoses by Horn, Payment in Goats: An African Healer at Work,” New York Times, March 2019

“Picturing the dreams of South Sudan’s new generation,” Washington Post, April 2019

The most magical moment in Esther Ruth Mbabazi’s career didn’t come from institutional recognition—though she has received plenty, including being named a National Geographic Explorer and a Magnum Foundation fellow—but instead when a girl in the slums of Kampala, Uganda, noticed that she was carrying a camera, and shouted: “Look, the cameraman is a girl!”

“This melted my heart because I believe, in that moment, a young girl’s idea of what she can do was broadened,” Mbabazi said.

The recovery room at a rural health center in Bududa, Uganda, where women rest after giving birth, on November 11, 2016. Photo by Esther Ruth Mbabazi. Courtesy of the artist.

An expectant mother rests outside a rural health center in Bududa, Uganda, as she prepares to give birth on November 11, 2016. In 2010, the government banned the practice of Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs), but did little to improve modern maternal health services in rural areas of Uganda. Photo by Esther Ruth Mbabazi. Courtesy of the artist.

A young mother bleeds excessively after giving birth in a rural health center in Bududa, Uganda, on November 11, 2016. Postpartum hemorrhage is a leading cause of maternal mortality in rural centers across Uganda. Photo by Esther Ruth Mbabazi. Courtesy of the artist.

A mother breastfeeds her newborn child in the recovery room of a rural health center in Bududa, Uganda, on November 11, 2017. Photo by Esther Ruth Mbabazi. Courtesy of the artist.

A portrait of a woman hawking bananas at the Old Taxi Park in Kampala, Uganda on September 22, 2017. Photo by Esther Ruth Mbabazi. Courtesy of the artist.

Onduparaka Football club fans sit on a fence during the Uganda Premier League tournament in Arua, Uganda, on March 10, 2018. Uganda has one of the world’s youngest populations, with 78 percent of Ugandans under the age of 30 as of 2012. Photo by Esther Ruth Mbabazi. Courtesy of the artist.

Mbabazi, who is self-taught, has been shooting professionally for three years, and already has contributed to publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and i-D. Some of her coverage has included photographing traditional birth attendants who help women in rural Uganda; the traditional healers who are battling the Ebola epidemic; and the youth in her home country, where nearly half of the population is under 15.

Mbabazi loves being able to represent her home to the larger world. “When you’re from a certain community,” she said, “there’s an unsaid sense of connection, respect, and responsibility that applies to the work you make, which in turn makes the work outstandingly strong.”

Kat, 16, in a drive-thru on Halloween night. “She checked her phone and started to cry but wouldn’t tell me why,” Bottoms said. “All I could do was sit there and comfort her. I asked if I could take her photo. She said yes and looked right at me. Sometimes her resistance to communicate is hard.” From Bottoms’ ongoing story about the relationship between her mother and Kat, who has autism and prodromal schizophrenia. Photo by September Dawn Bottoms. Courtesy of the artist.

September Dawn Bottoms only recently began pursuing a career as a photojournalist, yet she has already amassed recognition for her self-assigned work, earning a spot in the volume American Photography 35 this year.

Bottoms tells stories that she feels invested in. She has turned her lens on her mother and teenage sister as they grapple with mental illness; the residents in Boley, Oklahoma, a once-wealthy black town in decline; and the daily lives of three women who dance in strip clubs in Los Angeles.

Ashley and her son, Dantae, hang out in the bathroom while Ashley does her ritual bath before her shift at the club. Ashley, 30, has nearly quit stripping all together to focus her efforts elsewhere. However, she finds it hard to leave the lifestyle behind and isn’t sure what to do to replace her income. Photo by September Dawn Bottoms. Courtesy of the artist.

Ashley started working the day shift during the summer while Dantae, her son, goes to summer school. She steps outside to get a break as a man drives past looking at her. Photo by September Dawn Bottoms. Courtesy of the artist.

Ashley gets ready backstage at the Gentleman's club in Los Angeles during a night shift at the strip club. Photo by September Dawn Bottoms. Courtesy of the artist.

Prayer in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Boley, Oklahoma on the church’s 117th birthday. Some of Boley’s remaining residents blame lack of jobs, drugs, or mishandling of funds for the town’s steady decline. This project highlights the beauty of a small, forgotten town that refuses to give up. Photo by September Dawn Bottoms. Courtesy of the artist.

Once one of the wealthiest all black towns in America, Boley, Oklahoma, has been on a steady decline since losing its school and nearly all of its businesses. Chase, pictured here with his daughter, was part of the last generation to graduate from Boley Middle School. Photo by September Dawn Bottoms. Courtesy of the artist.

Lisa, 51, poses for a portrait. She picks at her face for hours to distract herself from past sexual trauma. From Bottoms’ ongoing story about the relationship between her mother and teenage sister, Katherine Grace, who has autism and prodromal schizophrenia. Photo by September Dawn Bottoms. Courtesy of the artist.

“The reality is that I’ll never completely understand someone else’s situation,” Bottoms said. “But it’s important to tell a story not just from a place of empathy, but of camaraderie.” She believes her own background provides that. “Although I come from a place of privilege as a young white woman in America, I also come from a place of hardship, poverty, and mental illness,” she said.

Bottoms hopes that poverty will no longer be a barrier to entering the photojournalism field, for those who cannot afford to attend top universities. “There are other paths that aren’t so direct,” she said, “and I think that if you put your heart and soul into a project and you are persistent as hell, you can beat those odds.”

Julie Aman, who is transgender, dances to a folk band at the Aurat March event celebrating International Women’s Day in Islamabad, Pakistan, on March 8, 2019. Photo by Saiyna Bashir for Reuters. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:

“This drug can stop mothers bleeding to death in childbirth — so why can’t more women get it?” Mosaic Science, March 2019

“Chinese Presence in Pakistan Is Targeted in Strike on Consulate in Karachi,” New York Times, November 2018

Saiyna Bashir primarily documents gender inequality and sectarian violence in her images. Her work is driven by her experiences growing up in Pakistan, where laws don’t support women nearly as much as they do in the Western world. She has photographed women who survived acid attacks stemming from domestic violence, as well as the achievements of transgender people in Pakistan.

Fareeha Saleem (left), Aqsa Nawab (right) and Noor Tariq (center), who are visiting from Dubai, dance with traditional anklets to classical music at the Classical Dance Academy in Lahore, Pakistan, on December 10, 2018. Photo by Saiyna Bashir for the New York Times. Courtesy of the artist.

Qasim Hussain, a vegetable vendor and former kite maker, shows his kites that are hidden at his house after he was arrested recently for kite-flying due to the strict ban in Lahore, Pakistan, on February 16, 2019. Photo by Saiyna Bashir for Al Jazeera. Courtesy of the artist.

Dr. Shahana Ali treats a patient who was hemorrhaging during labor at Holy Family Hospital on March 6, 2019, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Photo by Saiyna Bashir © Wellcome Trust. Courtesy of the artist.

Sobia Sajid’s meets her newborn baby at the high-risk postnatal ward after suffering from postpartum hemorrhaging at the Holy Family Hospital on March 6, 2019, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Photo by Saiyna Bashir © Wellcome Trust. Courtesy of the artist.

Sobia Sajid with her newborn Ahmed Sajid at their residence, nine days since her delivery where she suffered from postpartum hemorrhaging on March 14, 2019 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Photo by Saiyna Bashir © Wellcome Trust. Courtesy of the artist.

Sobia Sajid with her children and in-laws at their residence, nine days since her delivery where she suffered from postpartum hemorrhaging on March 14, 2019 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Photo by Saiyna Bashir © Wellcome Trust. Courtesy of the artist.

Though Bashir herself has been subject to personal harm while on assignment—last year, she was groped while covering a Diplo concert in Islamabad for Reuters, and in 2014, she was tear-gassed while covering the Ferguson riots in Missouri—she emphasizes the importance of the field she has chosen. “Photos are something that most people can relate to,” she said. “It is the most objective form of insight into a certain place or culture.”

Bashir has contributed to outlets including the New York Times, Al Jazeera, The Telegraph, and NPR. She said that photojournalism still looks like a “big boys club,” though she credits the platform Women Photograph for “working tirelessly to lessen this gap everyday.” Bashir mentors female photographers in Pakistan—even if that change is only one small step in correcting disparity.

Horse whisperer Oscar Scarpati in the farmyard with a wild foal in Villa de Merlo, San Luis, Argentina, on July 27, 2017. Photo by Erica Canepa. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments: “How Doctors And The Church Conspired To Stop An 11-Year-Old Girl From Having An Abortion After She Was Raped,” BuzzFeed News, April 2019

“Warrior for Women’s Rights,” Time, October 2018

Before she received her master’s degree in photojournalism eight years ago, Erica Canepa was an art restorer, and she believes she joined the field at just the right time. Photojournalism, she said, is changing. “Stories are no longer only told by white men, but there are many voices, many realities and ways to see things,” she explained.

Though Canepa has been shooting since she received her degree, she said that her photojournalism career really began in 2014, when she was living in Egypt. There, she photographed the Zabaleen people, who pick up 4,000 tons of Cairo’s waste each day. Among the piles of trash, she encountered a wedding. “I learned [that] beauty is everywhere, and looking for it can be a balm,” she said.

A young girl looks out of the window of horse whisperer Oscar Scarpati’s home in Villa de Merlo, San Luis, Argentina, July 25, 2017. Photo by Erica Canepa. Courtesy of the artist.

Pincén, the youngest son of horse whisperer Oscar Scarpati, plays with his pony in Villa de Merlo, San Luis, Argentina, on July 28, 2017. Photo by Erica Canepa. Courtesy of the artist.

Oscar Scarpati riding a horse near his home in Villa de Merlo, San Luis, Argentina, on July 29, 2017. Photo by Erica Canepa. Courtesy of the artist.

A wedding in the Garbage City community of Cairo, Egypt, on July 6, 2014. © Erica Canepa 2014. Courtesy of the artist.

A wedding in the Garbage City community of Cairo, Egypt, on July 6, 2014. © Erica Canepa 2014. Courtesy of the artist.

A wedding in the Garbage City community of Cairo, Egypt, on July 6, 2014. © Erica Canepa 2014. Courtesy of the artist.

Since then, Canepa has photographed a broad array of subjects, from impoverished country girls driving taxis in Bolivia to a community that self-identifies as elves in Pistoia, Italy. Her work has appeared in publications and media outlets including the New York Times, Bloomberg News, and the BBC.

Lately, Canepa has begun to turn her camera on herself, documenting her life in Buenos Aires in a series entitled “Sapucai,” which translates to “an ancient prayer” in a language indigenous to Argentina.

Nika, 24, a sniper for the Ukrainian army, on September 2, 2016, posted on the frontline of Debaltseve, a separatist-controlled region. Ukrainian forces troops were forced out of the region during a battle in winter of 2015. Photo by Sarah Blesener. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:

“High School Shooting Teams Are Getting Wildly Popular — And the NRA Is Helping,” Time, March 2019

“The Art of Crowdfunding War,” Bloomberg Businessweek, January 2019

In a news landscape that feeds instant culture, Sarah Blesener is focused on “slow journalism,” where the story is carefully dissected from all angles.

“I think there is a deep desire for storytelling that moves beyond headlines, beyond black-and-white and linear thinking, and offers challenging, hard-to-digest questions,” she said.

Curtis, Kate, and Jude lay in their backyard in Watford, North Dakota on July 6, 2017. The Long family has five children whom they homeschool. Watford, like other rural towns in Western North Dakota, faces unemployment and overdevelopment since the decline of the oil industry. Photo by Sarah Blesener. Courtesy of the artist.

Students at the "Inspection of Singing and Marching" competition at the gymnasium of School #6 for students in Dmitrov, a suburb of Moscow, Russia, on Dec 14, 2016. Photo by Sarah Blesener. Courtesy of the artist.

Students from School #18 perform a dance at the local theater in Sergiyev Posad, Russia. Photo by Sarah Blesener. Courtesy of the artist.

Alexandria Villasenor is a 13-year-old climate activist who striked in front of the UN building for 12 weeks, and, along with Greta Thunberg and fellow young activists around the world, organized a global “school strike for climate” on March 15, 2019. Photo by Sarah Blesener for The Washington Post. Courtesy of the artist.

16-year-olds Molly Elmer, Annemarie Roscoe, and Emily Elmer from Richfield pose for a portrait before competing at the annual trap shooting championship, on June 13, 2018, in Alexandra, Minnesota. Photo by Sarah Blesener for Time Magazine. Courtesy of the artist.

Christine Shevchenko of American Ballet Theater takes a final bow with Alban Lendorf after her debut performance as Kitri in Don Quixote at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on May 17, 2017. Photo by Sarah Blesener for The New York Times. Courtesy of the artist.

Ashley Coleman lives in the Thelma Burke building, housing for Section 8 tenants, in the Lower East Side with her husband and 21-year old son, taken on May 19, 2018 in New York City. Photo by Sarah Blesener. Courtesy of the artist.

In only three years, she has brought a keen eye to in-depth stories about war, nationalism, inequity, and education for publications like Newsweek, Time, and the New York Times. In each instance, she searches for “the off moments; the quieter, more poetic side to the story.”

Blesener’s particular area of focus is adolescent culture and identity, which combines her background in youth development with her love for narrative storytelling. Her most recognized body of work, on patriotism camps and education in America and Russia, shows two cultures historically at odds with each other that share commonalities in the political beliefs instilled in children. Through that series—which earned her a World Press Photo award, as well as major grants from CatchLight, Alexia Foundation, and the W. Eugene Smith Fund—and her other work, Blesener ultimately strives for nuance. “I’m interested in what is left when we peel away the many layers that are most often times portrayed in the news,” she explained.

Men are seen saying their prayers inside a mosque in the Manila City Jail in Manila, Philippines, on October 31, 2018. In the Philippines, men with pending cases spend months, sometimes years, in overcrowded cells waiting to be charged, sentenced, or tried. Photo by Hannah Reyes Morales. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:

“At 14, She Hunts Wolves and Takes Selfies With Cherished Eagle in Mongolia,” New York Times, December 2018

“Where 518 Inmates Sleep in Space for 170, and Gangs Hold It Together,” New York Times,January 2019

Over the past six years, Hannah Reyes Morales has grown from an unknown photographer to a regular contributor to the New York Times, covering the violent war on drugs in her native country. Growing up in the Philippines was an insular experience, and photography was her way “of learning, of asking questions,” she said.

Morales believes that digital platforms have helped democratize photography, including her own entry into the field, but she added that diversity within photojournalism still has “a long way to go.” While including more voices is a start, “it requires more rebuilding and more listening.”

A Filipino girl climbs a tree branch in Tondo, a district in Manila, home to hundreds of thousands of shanty dwellers. “My dream is to become queen,” she proudly declares in Tagalog. Photo by Hannah Reyes Morales. Courtesy of the artist.

A soldier in Marawi’s Grand Mosque, which was destroyed during the Marawi siege in 2017. More than a year after the Philippine military declared Marawi “liberated” from ISIS-linked militants, the ravaged city is still waiting for billions in promised infrastructure and aid. Over 100,000 people remain displaced, leaving the city vulnerable for militants to return. Photo by Hannah Reyes Morales for the Washington Post . Courtesy of the artist.

Altai Kazakh youth on horseback during the Golden Eagle Festival in Bayan-Ölgii, Mongolia. In Bayan-Ölgii, Mongolia, the once-dwindling art of eagle hunting is passed on to a new generation of youth who are embracing the tradition as part of their identity. Photo by Hannah Reyes Morales. Courtesy of the artist.

Talap Zamanbol, 14, with Bazarbai Dinismal, a younger relative training to be a falconer in Bayan-Ölgii, Mongolia. Zamanbol learned how to hunt with eagles through her late grandfather, whose eagle she later inherited. Photo by Hannah Reyes Morales. Courtesy of the artist.

Cadets at a merchant marine academy near Manila train for one of the most prestigious jobs for workers in the diaspora. Those who succeed are ensured a path to a middle-class life for their families. A quarter of the world’s seafarers come from the Philippines. Photo by Hannah Reyes Morales. Courtesy of the artist.

Men show off their tattoos in the Manila City Jail in Manila, Philippines on October 31, 2018. In the Philippines, men with pending cases spend months, sometimes years, in overcrowded cells waiting to be charged, sentenced, or tried. Photo by Hannah Reyes Morales. Courtesy of the artist.

Morales often takes on local or diasporic topics for publications like the Washington Post and National Geographic, but she has also delved into other cultures, like an assignment on eagle hunters in Mongolia. One of the most powerful moments she has witnessed was during a medical mission where hundreds of Filipinos recovered their vision through cataract surgery—a typically unaccessible procedure within the country. Morales photographed a husband tenderly hugging his wife, her eyes covered by bandages.

“I carry the stories of those I photograph with me,” she said. “To be entrusted with someone’s story is an incredible privilege, and I try my best to honor that.”

Recent assignments:

“Four fires and six souls,” Gli Occhi della Guerra, June 2018

“Bees Above Our Heads,” National Geographic, December 2018

Looking through Camilla Ferrari’s work is not a static experience: She tells her stories by experimenting with the interplay of stills and video. As digital media outlets look to create more interactive experiences, Ferrari’s practice seems to herald a new direction in visual storytelling.

Civita di Bagnoregio lies in the middle of the Calanchi Valley, Italy, surrounded by a sea of mist. The village, populated by six people, is eroding every year. On Tuesdays, at 9 am, Tony takes his small car and leaves the village to go grocery shopping. Photo by Camilla Ferrari. Courtesy of the artist.

Public toilets in the Shichahai area, Beijing, China, in August 2017. Photo by Camilla Ferrari. Courtesy of the artist.

Antonio in San Donato’s church, in the middle of Civita. Civita di Bagnoregio, a village of six in the middle of Calanchi Valley, Italy, is slowly crumbling away. Photo by Camilla Ferrari. Courtesy of the artist.

Interiors of San Donato’s church, in the center of Civita di Bagnoregio, a village of six in the middle of Calanchi Valley, Italy, that is slowly crumbling away. Photo by Camilla Ferrari. Courtesy of the artist.

An abandoned chair on a hill facing Civita. Civita di Bagnoregio, a village of six in the middle of Calanchi Valley, Italy, is slowly crumbling away. Photo by Camilla Ferrari. Courtesy of the artist.

Ferrari’s work most often deals with humans’ relationship with their environments, as well as vanishing cultures. One of her published multimedia series looks at a tiny village of only six people, built on an eroding tufa rock in central Italy. “The traditions and culture of the village are as fragile as the ground that supports it,” she said. “It was important to have a testimony of them, to understand in depth their love for the place and the fear of seeing it vanishing in front of their eyes.”

In a crowded field of storytellers, Ferrari doesn’t feel the need to make her work loud. “For me, it’s really important to have an element of delicateness and gentleness in my images and videos,” she explained. “In a world where images often scream at the observer, I truly believe that there is also a powerful dignity in silence.”

Shimika Sanchez, 34, nurses her newborn son Antonio Sanchez on September 1, 2018. Antonio is one of 11,234 children under age 6 living in New York City’s homeless shelters. Photo by Gabriella Angotti-Jones for the New York Times. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:“Baby Antonio: 5 Pounds, 12 Ounces and Homeless From Birth,” New York Times, October 2018

“‘My Whole Heart Is There,’” New York Times, July 2018

Gabriella Angotti-Jones—who is half-black, half-Italian—has embraced her background as a source of strength. “My ethnicity does not hold me back; it propels me forward,” she said. “My perspective is a gift and is needed.”

Angotti-Jones first started taking photographs while interning in husbandry and research at the Ocean Institute in Dana Point, California. “Climate change is the story of our lifetime,” she emphasized. “I want to tell stories that are action-oriented, as opposed to ones that feel hopeless.”

Bella Sanchez, 4, has her hair braided in her family’s shelter in Brooklyn on August 17, 2018. Photo by Gabriella Angotti-Jones for the New York Times . Courtesy of the artist.

Shimika Sanchez, 34, waits for the E train to Jamaica Center to go baby shopping on Saturday, August 18, 2018. Photo by Gabriella Angotti-Jones for the New York Times. Courtesy of the artist.

Janey Pearl Starks, left, opens the car door for Yeni González, to a hoard of media and supporters at welcome rally held in González’s honor at Central Park on Monday, July 2, 2018. Photo by Gabriella Angotti-Jones for the New York Times. Courtesy of the artist.

Fernando, 5, son of Rosayra Pablo Cruz, plays with American flags on a rooftop on Friday, July 13, 2018. Earlier in the day he was released from Cayuga Center in Harlem and reunited with Cruz, who had been held separately at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona. Photo by Gabriella Angotti-Jones for the New York Times. Courtesy of the artist.

The Cheyenne High School Glamourettes wait for the football game against Canyon Springs to start at Cheyenne High School in North Las Vegas, on Friday, September 1, 2017. Gabriella Angotti-Jones for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Courtesy of the artist.

The Las Vegas Nova youth cheer squad performs before a football game at Cheyenne High School in North Las Vegas, on Friday, September 1, 2017. Gabriella Angotti-Jones for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Courtesy of the artist.

After graduating with a degree in environmental studies, Angotti-Jones landed a string of internships, including at the New York Times. There, she shot assignments that included a story about children born into homelessness, focusing on baby Antonio and his parents, Shimika and Tony Sanchez.

Angotti-Jones treats her subjects as collaborators rather than objects of fascination. “So much of practicing documentary photography is taking from the people we photograph—their time, patience, energy, and likeness,” she said. “I try to destroy any power structure that’s present as much as possible.” She also aims to empower women of color by showing the strength they exhibit in their lives. “Showing everyday situations is a really powerful storytelling tool, especially with low-income or historically disenfranchised communities,” she added.

The National Dance Ensemble, just before a performance in Sukhum, Abkhazia, on May 17, 2016. Photo by Ksenia Kuleshova. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:

“Germans First? A Food Bank Bars Migrants, Setting Off a Storm,” New York Times, March 2018

“‘All of Africa Is Here’: Where Europe’s Southern Border Is Just a Fence,” New York Times,August 2018

“As a photojournalist, it’s exciting to avoid cliches…and to give people the opportunity to tell their own stories, not create the story for them,” said Ksenia Kuleshova, a Moscow-to-Germany transplant.

Kuleshova entered the field with a sustained series on Abkhazia, a former tourist destination that lost its status and identity amid the violent reshuffling of territory following the Soviet Union’s collapse. She has called the small region “a country that is caught in a two-decade-long sleep”; her images reveal a place knitted together by tradition, but caught in stasis.

The road to the village Pskhu in Abkhazia, on May 9, 2015. In the summer of 1942, Nazi armed forces occupied the village. Photo by Ksenia Kuleshova. Courtesy of the artist.

A regional festival in Baierbrunn, a municipality near Munich, Germany. Traditional outfits are gaining greater popularity in Bavaria, even among young people. Photo by Ksenia Kuleshova. Courtesy of the artist.

Potatoes are stored on a floor in order for them to stay dry in Eshera, Abkhazia, on July 7, 2017. Photo by Ksenia Kuleshova. Courtesy of the artist.

A portrait of Hegumen Ignatij in St. John Chrysostom’s Monastery, Kamani village, Sukhum, Abkhazia. Photo by Ksenia Kuleshova. Courtesy of the artist.

Etluhov Islam (38) celebrates his victory in horse racing. Sports like horse racing and horse football take place twice a year in Abkhazia on May 9 and September 30. Photo by Ksenia Kuleshova. Courtesy of the artist.

In the village of Ilor, Kuleshova recalled knocking on a door and being welcomed by a woman, who said she had waited for a journalist to come for 20 years. “For several hours, she showed me everything she had and told me her family’s story,” Kuleshova said, emphasizing that it’s a privilege to enter a person’s life in such a way.

For about four years, Kuleshova has balanced documentary work with assignments for publications including GEO France, the Wall Street Journal, and Die Zeit.

“I don’t rush in the attempt to catch the daily news event,” she said. “I’m keen to…build real relationships and to develop [the story] deeply.”

Chan Hak-chi goes swimming in Hong Kong, on May 25, 2017. Photo by Yue Wu. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:“Chinese boxer trounces stereotypes to become ‘Queen of the Ring,’” Reuters, April 2019

Yue Wu experienced the power of photojournalism after her story about Chinese medical tourists was published online. Her subjects, who traveled far to China’s cities for treatments, received donations to cover their expenses.

“Journalism doesn’t just change the world; it also changed me,” she said. Wu believes that images have the ability to act like a mirror. “I see myself in the story,” she added. “Even if we speak different languages, we all love, hope, and suffer.”

Li Lin poses for a photo while holding her 4-year-old daughter Xinyi at their home in Shanghai, on August 19, 2016. In three months, Li and her husband have spent nearly 150,000 yuan on their daughter’s leukemia treatments. Photo by Yue Wu. Courtesy of the artist.

Gu Lin poses for a photo with her 8-year-old son Yuang at their apartment in Shanghai, Aug 17, 2016. Gu and her husband have spent more than 300,000 yuan on treatment during their six months in Shanghai. Photo by Yue Wu. Courtesy of the artist.

Li Lin tries to persuade her daughter Xiaoyi to stop watching video and go to sleep, in Shanghai, on August 18, 2016. Photo by Yue Wu. Courtesy of the artist.

Hao leans against his mother, Jiang Yueshu, while she prays before bedtime, in Shanghai, on August 7, 2016. Photo by Yue Wu. Courtesy of the artist.

Nursing home director Du Liuhua stands behind Chen Ouhong’s wheelchair one evening before the elderly resident heads to bed. Photo by Yue Wu. Courtesy of the artist.

Parts of the former Versailles Hotel have been renovated, but it still features decor from the building’s past life. Photo by Yue Wu. Courtesy of the artist.

Working as a photojournalist since 2013, Wu has contributed images and videos to the San Francisco Chronicle, Reuters, and The Guardian, and interned at Sports Illustrated and the Washington Post before returning to her native China. Today, she is a staff photographer for Sixth Tone, an online, English-language publication based in Shanghai.

Wu has turned her lens on an array of local stories, including China’s child models; a former sex club on the outskirts of Dongguan that has been converted to a nursing home; and a massage parlor in Chongqing that exclusively employs blind people. As the only child in her family, Wu is fascinated by the inner workings of other communities. “I am always curious about how other people live,” she said.

A father holds his daughter after she was killed by a mortar in the fight against ISIS in West Mosul on March 11, 2017. Photo by Alexandra Rose Howland. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:

“The Explosive Battle to Build an Iraqi National Park,” National Geographic, March 2018

“A Mossoul, il n’y a pas une famille qui n’ait des morts à pleurer, des disparus à déplorer,” Le Monde,January 2019

Four years ago, Alexandra Rose Howland was working out of her Los Angeles studio as an abstract painter. One year later, after starting a documentary photography practice, she moved to Iraq.

“What I have learned since moving to Iraq is that there are oddities of working in a war zone that make this job impossible to understand,” she said. “Being in a war zone does not always mean being in war. Life continues right next to an active frontline.”

Ahmed stands for a portrait by his booth with a fish market on February 21, 2018. Before the Mosul Offensive, the market was in Old City just across the river. Photo by Alexandra Rose Howland. Courtesy of the artist.

Having fled Anbar just days before, a mother of two stands outside the Medic Center inside Hamam al-Alil Refugee Camp in Iraq waiting for treatment on March 15, 2017. Photo by Alexandra Rose Howland. Courtesy of the artist.

A young boy sells cotton candy to passing cars near Hamam al-Alil Refugee Camp in Iraq, on January 10, 2018. Photo by Alexandra Rose Howland. Courtesy of the artist.

A family carries buckets of water with them back to their home within Western Mosul. As most of the city has been entirely destroyed, residents who have chosen to remain inside Mosul as the conflict continues, are left without easy access to water or food. Photo by Alexandra Rose Howland. Courtesy of the artist.

A federal police soldier takes rest and sifts through Facebook while his unit holds the line on the outskirts of Old City Mosul on April 7, 2017. Photo by Alexandra Rose Howland. Courtesy of the artist.

A view of the West Side of Mosul. The majority of Old City West Mosul remains in ruin nearly a year after Mosul was liberated from ISIS. Photo by Alexandra Rose Howland. Courtesy of the artist.

Howland doesn’t consider herself a formal photojournalist; instead, she uses photography as a tool to “translate a larger concept,” she explained. When she does take assignments—for the New York Times, Le Monde, and the Wall Street Journal, among others—her painter’s eye is always present. In her coverage of the Battle of Mosul, from 2016 to 2017, Howland wielded color and landscape as a narrative tool to show scenes seemingly more familiar within the gritty, recondite atmosphere of war.

“I have been very lucky to work with editors who hire me because I am looking to work in a different way, not in spite of it,” she said. “We are all eager to continuously redefine the visual language we are accustomed to, and the fact that’s possible is exciting.”

An expectant Bibi Aysha Valiallah clutches her belly while praying at the Zawiya Naqshbandi in Baccleuch, South Africa. Photo by Gulshan Khan. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:

“How Did Rifles With an American Stamp End Up in the Hands of African Poachers?” New York Times, December 2018

“Zimbabwe economic crisis drives cross-border cargo shuttles from South Africa,” Agence France Presse, March 2019

As a photojournalist who grew up in apartheid-era South Africa, Gulshan Khan has experienced when injustice is sanctioned by law. Khan’s first long-term documentary series turns the camera on her own Muslim community. “Apartheid divided us in so many ways, including putting us into reductive racial groups: Black, Colored, Indian,” she said. “We still have these stratified, ghettoized ideas of trying to understand each other through the oppressive lens of these different boxes.”

Birds scavenge from the waste at Robinson Deep landfill, Johannesburg’s largest landfill, on June 29, 2018. Photo by Gulshan Khan. Courtesy of the artist.

On June 2, 2018, clothing hangs on a washing line of a building called Bekezela (Patience), a former school that has since become the home to many informal waste collectors in Johannesburg. Photo by Gulshan Khan. Courtesy of the artist.

A “reclaimer” waste collector, sometimes called “silver surfers,” pulls his load of waste on a trolley into Mudimu Recycling, a buy-back center in Selby, Johannesburg, on June 27, 2018. Photo by Gulshan Khan. Courtesy of the artist.

A girl rides the carousel at the Sultan Bahu Fete in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Sultan Bahu Center is a Muslim community-based NPO that runs a home for vulnerable children, a drug rehabilitation centre, and specialized medical care. Photo by Gulshan Khan. Courtesy of the artist.

Residents stand on rooftops and use water supplied by the emergency services to subdue a fire in the informal settlement of Stjwetla in Alexandra Township, Johannesburg on March 05, 2019. Photo by Gulshan Khan. Courtesy of the artist.

A resident signals to others while using water to subdue a fire in the informal settlement of Stjwetla in Alexandra Township, Johannesburg on March 05, 2019. Photo by Gulshan Khan. Courtesy of the artist.

In less than three years, Khan’s work has been published by publications including Al Jazeera, El Pais, and the New York Times; and she became the first woman from Africa to be a stringer for Agence France Presse. Last year, her image of a woman at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Johannesburg was named one of Time’s top 100 photos of the year.

Khan wants to see a greater shift in ethics in photography. “There is still a big difference in the way in which white people are photographed compared to black and brown people, and most people in the upper echelons of this industry still don’t even see it,” she said. “Consent by a person to be photographed is not enough, and often this is used as a justification to produce imagery that is disrespectful or compromising of the person’s dignity or safety.”

A portrait of Rubeilis in the Los Olivos neighborhood, on the outskirts of Cúcuta, Colombia, on May 11, 2018. Photo by Fabiola Ferrero. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:

“Hungry and Desperate, but Away From a Country in Chaos,” New York Times, April 2019

“‘Maman, hier j’ai rêvé que je mangeais,’” Le Monde, April 2019

Fabiola Ferrero explores stories of trauma and healing in her home country, Venezuela, amid its economic crisis. She balances assignments for Bloomberg News, NPR, and the New York Times with work that goes beyond traditional reporting. Her series “I Can’t Hear the Birds” combines her images with diary entries and archival family photographs of those who have fled their homes. Instead of addressing what is happening in the country, it asks the question: How is this affecting our souls?

Protesters look for protection from tear gas and rubber during a confrontation with the National Guard on April 6, 2017 in Caracas, Venezuela. Photo by Fabiola Ferrero. Courtesy of the artist.

A young protester waits for the water cannon to come to him during an opposition demonstration in Caracas, Venezuela, on April 6, 2017. Photo by Fabiola Ferrero. Courtesy of the artist.

Kids bathe in a public fountain on March 11, 2019, during a nationwide blackout that left the capital with no water service. Photo by Fabiola Ferrero. Courtesy of the artist.

Johanna Codallo poses for a portrait with her daughter inside her home in Petare, Caracas, on March 20, 2019. Photo by Fabiola Ferrero. Courtesy of the artist.

People bathe in the contaminated Guaire River, in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 11, 2019. Photo by Fabiola Ferrero. Courtesy of the artist.

Oriana Mavarez (center), her mother, and other Venezuelan migrants in “The Parking Lot,” their home for two years, in Riohacha, Colombia, on April 2, 2019. Photo by Fabiola Ferrero. Courtesy of the artist.

Ferrero grew up in violent unrest and revolution. “It has become my responsibility to document it,” she said. She has begun covering other Latin American countries, too, such as coca farmers in Colombia. There, she asked children to draw something that represents their lives, and a seven-year-old girl drew a landmine.

“War can be subtle like that, too,” Ferrero said. “It is not just the bullets; it is people adapting to a hostile reality that eventually becomes normal.”

Ferrero, who is a Magnum Foundation fellow, said that selective empathy is one of the biggest challenges in journalism today. She asked, “How can we make an audience engage with a reality different from theirs?”

Briana at the beauty contest “Miss Arcoiris,” an organization that advocates for LGBTQ+ rights in Honduras. Photo by Francesca Volpi. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:

“The Vatican Is Talking About Clerical Abuse, but Italy Isn’t. Here’s Why.” New York Times, February 2019

“Italy Allows Illegal Homes to Be Rebuilt, Earthquake Zone or Not,” Wall Street Journal, March 2019

Whether she’s covering the war in eastern Ukraine or the struggles of the LGBTQ community in Honduras, Francesca Volpi likes to focus on the stories of people who aren’t covered by major media outlets. “I think it is a great moment historically to challenge the status quo and talk about gender identity,” she said, “as well as help people to see how environmental issues affect the world’s population.”

Shantal, who is transgender, gets ready for a beauty contest in San Antonio de Cortez, Honduras. Photo by Francesca Volpi. Courtesy of the artist.

Sharpey at a beauty contest in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Though the country has pride parades and beauty contests for the LGBTQ+ community, it is still a dangerous climate for them to live in. Photo by Francesca Volpi. Courtesy of the artist.

A member of the audience is kissed during a beauty contest in the Dubai Discotec in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Photo by Francesca Volpi. Courtesy of the artist.

Darwin mourns the death of his brother at his funeral. Photo by Francesca Volpi. Courtesy of the artist.

A woman in Maidan square in central Kiev during the Ukranian revolution on February 18, 2014. A fire broke out in the Trade Union House, protester’s headquarters, and first-aid station. Photo by Francesca Volpi. Courtesy of the artist.

A woman holds a photo of her husband, who was killed during a sniper attack, on February 18, 2014 in Maidan Square, Kiev, during the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. Photo by Francesca Volpi. Courtesy of the artist.

Volpi has been working as a photojournalist since 2013, and she admits that the industry is tough. She has survived in large part because of grants and fellowships from nonprofits and NGOs, including the International Women’s Media Foundation, Women Photograph, and Women Equality Center, all of which have funded her projects in Honduras.

Volpi is almost constantly on the move, chasing assignments from Egypt and Mexico to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lately, she’s been particularly interested in showing the ways that violence and abuse leave mental scars on survivors. “It think it is important to see what other people go through to make us understand how important is to be united and supportive with each other rather than divided,” she said.

A view of a school window blocked with sandbags to protect from shelling in Verkhnyotoretske, Donetsk, Ukraine, on November 28, 2016. Photo by Anastasia Vlasova. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:

“This is what it’s like to live through freezing winter in a war zone,” United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, January 2019

“Women on the Front Line,” International Committee of the Red Cross, March 2018

In 2014, when Anastasia Vlasova was just 21 years old, she began covering the Ukranian revolution that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych. Since then, she has covered the Russian annexation of Crimea and the effects of conflict. She chooses to focus on the lives of people instead of war images. “My photography is about quiet and unspoken sorrows and joys of individuals and communities on the front line,” she said.

Anastasia Sarancha hugs Yana Kapusta, a Ukrainian soldier who serves in the area, before the prom in Shchastya, Luhansk, Ukraine, on June 24, 2017. Photo by Anastasia Vlasova. Courtesy of the artist.

Classmates Ilya Gudzovatiy and Ilya Shlykov, decorate the school’s assembly hall in Shchastya, Luhansk, Ukraine, on May 31, 2017. Shchastya translates to “happiness.” Photo by Anastasia Vlasova. Courtesy of the artist.

Students at the school year opening ceremony at School No. 23 in Velyka Verhunka, a suburb of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic, on September 1, 2017. Photo by Anastasia Vlasova. Courtesy of the artist.

A woman sits on a bus after evacuating the embattled town of Debaltseve, Donetsk, Ukraine. Photo by Anastasia Vlasova. Courtesy of the artist.

Yulia Novomlynets,18, waits in line to receive humanitarian aid in Mironovka village’s Palace of Culture, which is being used as a bomb shelter, near Debaltseve, Ukraine.Photo by Anastasia Vlasova. Courtesy of the artist.

Relatives attend the funeral ceremony of 11-year old Artem Lytkin, who was killed from shelling in Debaltseve, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, on January 19, 2015. Photo by Anastasia Vlasova. Courtesy of the artist.

Vlasova—who was a Magnum fellow in 2015 and has shot for Newsweek, Spiegel Online, NBC News, and The Guardian—finds that visual storytelling can be more powerful than text journalism. “Ideally, it strikes you and stays with you, while words can be lost in translation and interpretation,” she commented.

Vlasova believes that photojournalism boundaries are blurring, and that photographers can choose to be more than a fly on the wall and begin interacting with the people they photograph. She cautions against those who don’t take the ethics of their profession seriously.

“As a war photographer myself, I always keep in mind that I will leave the area, but the people I photograph will stay, and the choices I make can influence [their] lives,” she said.

Noor, a Rohingya refugee, was gang-raped by soldiers in Myanmar. Photo by Rebecca Conway for the New York Times . Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments: “When a Baby Is an Everyday Reminder of Rohingya Horror,” New York Times, July 2018“Investors Are in Retreat, and the Poorest Countries Are Paying for It,” New York Times, December 2018

Before Rebecca Conway was a visual journalist, she was a writer, and then a photo editor. She believes that images have an immediacy that other mediums do not. Learning how to take photographs required a steep learning curve; Conway was helped by advice and guidance from fellow photo editors and photographers.

A pregnant 20-year-old woman receives a checkup at a maternity clinic in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. Photo by Rebecca Conway for the New York Times. Courtesy of the artist.

The Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. Photo by Rebecca Conway for the New York Times. Courtesy of the artist.

A Pakistani labourer rides a bicycle through a brick factory on the outskirts of Islamabad. Photo by Rebecca Conway. Courtesy of the artist.

Pakistani labourers prepare to start work at a brick factory on the outskirts of Islamabad. Photo by Rebecca Conway. Courtesy of the artist.

A Pakistani labourer is silhouetted as he walks across the top of a kiln at a brick factory on the outskirts of Rawalpindi. Photo by Rebecca Conway. Courtesy of the artist.

Within a short amount of time, Conway was shooting stories for the New York Times, The Guardian, and Reuters, among other outlets. In particular, she has a talent for connecting with her subjects—whether they are Rohingya women who are victims of rape, or bonded laborers working in brick factories in Pakistan. Conway especially appreciates the opportunity to spend time with her subjects when she is on assignment. “People often invite journalists into their homes and their lives despite personal risk, and that’s something I always try to remember—that we’re trusted to tell people’s stories respectfully and accurately, without putting them at risk,” she said.

Conway is particularly interested in the stories of those whose lives remain invisible to many. “We’re living in increasingly polarized societies, and the gap between those who live in safety and security and those who don’t is terrifyingly wide,” she said.

Bianca Castillo cradles her newborn son, Eliseo, on March 21, 2018 in Fort Worth, Texas. Behind her hangs a photo blanket of Ama holding her other great-grandson, Jack, when he was a newborn. Photo by Desiree Rios. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:

“‘I Had Finally Found the Right Place for My Son,’” New York Times, March 2019

“The Cities Where The Cops See No Hate,” BuzzFeed News, December 2018

Desiree Rios is deeply suspicious of the long-held notion that photojournalists must keep themselves at a distance in order to remain objective. Instead, she believes that connecting with subjects brings out a more truthful—and compassionate—story. “I try to approach storytelling by listening and understanding the people I photograph before picking up the camera,” she said.

Ama poses for a portrait shortly after receiving ashes at her church on Ash Wednesday in Fort Worth, Texas, on March 6, 2019. Photo by Desiree Rios. Courtesy of the artist.

A framed picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Ama’s living room in Fort Worth, Texas, on March 14, 2019. Photo by Desiree Rios. Courtesy of the artist.

Eliseo sleeps in Ama’s bed on Easter Sunday on April 1, 2018 in Fort Worth, Texas. Photo by Desiree Rios. Courtesy of the artist.

Ama holds Isabella’s hand post appendectomy surgery on March 29, 2017 in Fort Worth, Texas. Photo by Desiree Rios. Courtesy of the artist.

Zabrina Contreras braids her daughter Isabella’s hair in Ama’s room on March 23, 2019 in Fort Worth, Texas. Photo by Desiree Rios. Courtesy of the artist.

While covering the aftermath of the Coyote Creek flood in San Jose, California, in 2017, Rios got to know Julia Mata, a woman who lost her rent-controlled apartment after it was damaged. Rios photographed Mata as she moved from a hotel to temporary housing, all the while being treated as a member of her family. “I would not have had that access or trust if I wasn’t who I am as a Latinx woman,” Rios said.

Rios has only been working as a full-time photojournalist since 2018, but in that short time, she has contributed to the New York Times, CNN, and The Guardian, among other outlets.

She credits her success, in part, to the Women Photograph Mentorship Program, which has connected her with editors and seasoned photographers committed to amplifying female voices in the industry. “In order to decolonize the lens and reclaim narratives, we need more representation,” she said.

Nirma, 16, plays with her friends and cousins in Shravasti, Uttar Pradesh, India. Nirma is married to Rakesh from a nearby village. Photo by Saumya Khandelwal. Courtesy of the artist.

Recent assignments:

Dalai Lama and the Tibetan community in exile, National Geographic, upcoming

“The City of My Birth in India Is Becoming a Climate Casualty. It Didn’t Have to Be.” New York Times, July 2018

Born and raised in Uttar Pradesh, India (where the Taj Mahal is located), Saumya Khandelwal almost never sees her home accurately represented by Western photographers. “The nuances of cultures are hard to achieve, and it’s very easy to get stuck in the colors and depictions of the region,” Khandelwal said.

Sheela and Sanju Sonkar show their tattoos, symbolic of their marital status, in Shravasti, Uttar Pradesh, India. Some girls are not accepted in their husbands’ homes if they don't agree to be tattooed. Photo by Saumya Khandelwal. Courtesy of the artist.

Children participate in a school activity in Shravasti, Uttar Pradesh, India. On the wall is painted, “Education is the essential of life.” Photo by Saumya Khandelwal. Courtesy of the artist.

Muskaan, 14, is dressed up by family and friends on her wedding day. She discontinued her school when her wedding date was set because her father thought it wasn't appropriate for her to attend school anymore. Photo by Saumya Khandelwal. Courtesy of the artist.

As part of the ceremonies, Muskaan, 14, walks around the fire followed by the groom, Raju, on their wedding day. One in four girls in Shravasti, India, is married before she turns 18 years of age. Photo by Saumya Khandelwal. Courtesy of the artist.

Anjani, 16, sits in a corner of her husband's house during the Gauna ceremony. In this part of India, a bride does not start living with her husband right after marriage. Photo by Saumya Khandelwal. Courtesy of the artist.

On average women in Shravasti, India, have at least 5 children during their lifetimes. Photo by Saumya Khandelwal. Courtesy of the artist.

Khandelwal brings nuance to her own work, turning her lens on child brides in Shravasti—an ancient city in her home state—and on the polluted banks of the Yamuna River in New Delhi. She has received multiple accolades, including the Getty Images Instagram grant and the National Foundation for India Award, both in 2017, and she participated in the World Press Photo 6x6 Global Talent Program in 2019. She has been published by the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and Bloomberg Businessweek.

When Khandelwal first started working as a photojournalist in 2014, she found herself in a boat on the Yamuna surrounded by hundreds of migrating Siberian birds. “I was stunned by the view and did not know how to respond—whether I should shoot, or just experience,” she said. “I chose the latter. I realized that I did not want to stop experiencing the world because of my photography.”

from Artsy News

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/world/is-our-growing-obsession-with-true-crime-a-problem/

Is our growing obsession with true crime a problem?

Image caption Shows like Making a Murderer have given criminal cases worldwide attention

From series like Making a Murderer to podcasts like Serial – true crime seems to be everywhere these last few years.

I put my hands up and admit it – I’m an addict.

For reasons even I don’t understand, crime documentaries have become my default way to unwind.

If I have friends over, I might make an embarrassed joke about my streaming suggestions – but the evidence suggests I’m not alone.

The genre’s growth is inescapable. Almost every week there seems to be a new documentary released and not without controversy.

Some warn we risk glamorising notorious killers and erasing their victims with the coverage. Others have accused programme makers of being selective with evidence.

So is our fascination with true crime problematic? I spoke to victims and the communities directly affected to try and find out.

The survivor

Kathy Kleiner was only 20 years old when she was attacked by Ted Bundy.

He beat her in bed with a piece of wood in the Chi Omega house at Florida State University in 1978.

Before entering her room, Bundy had murdered two of her sorority sisters as they slept.

Image copyright Kathy Kleiner

Image caption Kathy with her son Michael (left) and husband (right)

Kathy was left with a shattered jaw and severe facial injuries. Her mouth had to be wired shut, forcing her to leave college.

Now 61, Kathy says she hadn’t spoken about the experience much until US media recently tracked her down.

This year marks 30 years since Ted Bundy’s execution. You can probably tell because the serial killer seems to be everywhere in 2019.

In February it was reported that Netflix had paid millions to secure US rights to a new movie starring heartthrob actor Zac Efron as Bundy.

The announcement came as the trailer caused uproar online, with some accusing it of sexualising the killer.

Netflix, who had also just released a series focusing on interviews with Bundy, even weighed in on social media.

I ask Kathy, as one of a handful of survivors, what it was like to be continually reminded of Bundy in popular culture.

“I did not ask to be put on the journey with him in his life – with his killing and his abuse,” she says in a phone interview from New Orleans, where she now lives.

Image copyright Sky Cinema

Image caption Efron’s portrayal of Bundy won praise when it debuted at Sundance Festival

But for her, knowledge has meant power.

“I read every book and saw everything I could read and see about him,” she says, while acknowledging others may have coped differently.

Efron has adopted Bundy’s curls and signature smile for the role – and bears an uncanny resemblance to the killer.

“When Hollywood makes a movie they want it to sell, they want people to see it,” Kathy says about his slick portrayal.

“Bundy showed them what he wanted them to see – he was always in control… Zac Efron – he’s playing a part – he’s an actor. He’s doing this the way he was, the way they perceived Bundy.”

You can hear more on this story on the Beyond Today podcast on the BBC Sounds app or online on the podcast’s website from 16:00 GMT on 1 April.

Kathy says she attempted to contact the studio when she heard about the production, but assumes the email was lost among general enquiries.

She admits that she can’t imagine watching as a relative of one of the 30 women and girls he is known to have killed.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Kathy went on to testify against Bundy at trial

“To me they’re the heroes during this, having to endure this publicity,” she says.

She hopes the movie reflects the victims more than the trailer alludes.

“I don’t know how far they dive into the victims,” Kathy says. “So without seeing it and if they don’t do the victims right – then maybe I’ll be pissed.”

The community

Wisconsin has the unenviable reputation of being home to some of America’s most notorious ever crimes.

Manitowoc County sits on the state’s eastern shore. It houses 80,000 residents but is famous around the world for just one – Steven Avery.

Image caption A mural welcomes visitors and celebrates the city’s heritage

Image caption Manitowoc borders Lake Michigan and is a hub for manufacturing

A Netflix series charting Avery’s wrongful conviction on sexual assault charges and re-incarceration for murder became a sensation on its December 2015 debut.

Hundreds of thousands of people have since signed petitions demanding his and his nephew’s acquittal. A second series has already been released and legal appeals are ongoing.

I travel to Manitowoc at the start of March, when a hangover from an unusually cold winter means snow is still deep on the ground.

Before travelling I try to reach out to local officials – but there seems to be an understandable reluctance to speak to yet another journalist coming to town.

The international spotlight has brought uncomfortable attention to the county and its city namesake.

Now, tourists drive over to the Avery family’s Salvage Yard to take selfies. A firefighter tells me the local police have been forced to moderate Facebook comments because of abuse. I’m told threats have forced other officials off social media altogether.

Image copyright CALUMET COUNTY/SUPPLIED

Image caption The entrance to Steven Avery’s property has become an attraction for visitors

One Manitowoc resident determined not to stay silent is Jason Prigge.

As a businessman working around the country, he says the final straw came when a client introduced himself and asked: “Well, did he do it?” in reference to Avery.

Since then, he and his wife Tina have made it their mission to change the outside world’s perspective of Manitowoc. They set up an online web series, The Coolest Coast, to showcase positive aspects of the community like local businesses.

Tina describes the Avery case as a “freak anomaly” and like others I spoke to, points out the Avery property is actually miles outside the city of Manitowoc.

“Reporters come in or somebody from Hollywood comes in to make a show and they get to leave without delving in and really learning who this community is or what it has to offer,” Tina says. “To them it’s just a name, it’s just a story.”

“Imagine if you have a bunch of TV crews park outside of your house and they look at your house and they judge you because of one cracked window,” Jason says about the negative attention.

“They never talk to people that live in the house, but they just look at the house from the outside.”

Image caption Tina and Jason come from a background in civil service and marketing

Image caption The city has seen reporters come from around the world

The couple show me around the area, keen to show it off.

In the cold weather, much of the river is still frozen and has a sparkly glaze. The city’s skyline is dominated by industry and a historic courthouse I recognise from the show, but is otherwise full of quaint local businesses like coffee shops and boutiques. It’s a postcard image I didn’t expect.

They urge people like me not to judge the county and all of its residents from the documentary.

“The cameras and reporters leave but what they’ve left here is a stain which we’re trying to scrub,” Jason says of the lasting damage.

The business

Eighty miles south of Manitowoc is Milwaukee – a city known best for its beer and baseball.

But it is also a destination high on the list for America’s biggest true crime fanatics.

The Cream City Cannibal tour takes visitors around Walker’s Point – the area where serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer lured some of his victims from gay bars.

Its website boasts the tour is “so gruesome that it was banned from Groupon twice”.

Image caption The tour’s owner insists nothing could change his mind about his business

When it launched, local media covered a protest by victim’s families. Critics said it was too soon because the crimes were still in living memory for many.

The tour leaves from Shakers – a bar in the centre of the old gay district. Once owned by the Capone family as a speakeasy and brothel, the location has a dark history of its own.

Current boss Robert Weiss bought it in the 1980s and runs a number of ghost tours from the venue. He says he got the idea for a Dahmer tour when people he met travelling made reference to the killer after he introduced himself as a Milwaukee-native.

Bob also knew the crime well because local police frequented the bar and Dahmer even visited himself.

“I served him drinks for five or six months as he periodically came in,” Bob tells me.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Dahmer was arrested in 1991 and was murdered in prison three years later

About 12 people take the tour on the Saturday night I attend. The weather is freezing cold and it rains and snows throughout.

Those attending are mostly true crime super-fans, but also include a family and a couple celebrating their anniversary.

Our guide talks us through the serial killer’s upbringing, alcoholism and journey towards violence.

Dahmer, who admitted killing 17 boys and men, is considered one of the most heinous criminals in US history.

His murders and cannibalism are described in grisly detail by our guide, who points out infamous locations along our walk.

Image caption Organisers says some family members of victims have been on the tour

The information is disturbing, but not worse than what you may hear on any Dahmer documentary.

Bob insists the tour has historical and educational value, but I notice his bar also sells T-shirts, which feels at odds with that.

“Of the thousands of shirts that we have sold with that likeness on, have we had anyone complain? We have not,” Bob says.

He rejects the assertion they are incendiary, and insists they only started making them because of unprecedented customer demand.

“I think if you are talking about things that are in poor taste, there’s any number of other things that would go above and behind what the shirt is,” he says, pointing to people who buy morbid artefacts like Charles Manson’s artwork.

He also says that he rejected other bad-taste merchandise options, like cannibal-themed food.

Image caption Their “Milwaukee Cannibal” shirt also has “Dahmer 17” on the back

Those attending the tour reject the assertion that it’s in bad taste or comes too soon.

“I’ve always grown up knowing about it,” says one tour-goer named Alex who is in his 20s. “I think it’s just part of our history and rather than hide it and keep it in the background, I think it’s important for people to know about it so they can try and avoid it in the future.”

Another, Melissa from Illinois, had already been on the tour before.

“I don’t think it’s disrespectful to the families,” she says. “I think it’s more of a way of remembering the victims instead of them being forgotten.”

She, like me, admits watching a lot of true crime. She believes the addictive nature of streaming services is behind the boom in their popularity.

The experts

Deborah Allen has seen a “huge jump” in audience interest over the last few years.

She is vice-president of programming at Jupiter Entertainment – one of the biggest producers of true crime television in the US.

The company started making murder shows back in 1998, despite initial hesitancy from TV channels.

“It used to be that the networks saw true crime shows as their dirty little secret,” she says.

Image copyright Jupiter Entertainment

Image caption Jupiter Entertainment’s shows include titles like Snapped – which has had 24 series

In the last decade a number of dedicated 24-hour crime channels have sprung up in the UK and US.

High-budget series may have gone mainstream but there is still a mass of other content made to fill these network schedules too.

The demand means Jupiter now makes about 200 hours of crime shows a year – fuelled by researchers who comb through news stories from around the country.

Deborah says they only cover cases that have been resolved in court, and thinks many viewers take comfort in seeing justice served.

She also says their company listens to victims’ families if they object to a case being covered.

But the recent public distress from the mother of James Bulger about a film made about her son’s murder shows the family’s view does not always prevail.

How controversial James Bulger film was made

Serial’s Adnan Syed loses retrial bid

It’s a similar story behind other popular shows too.

The McCann family did not contribute to a new series about their daughter’s disappearance and Theresa Halbach’s family have never taken part in Making a Murderer.

The loved ones of 1999 murder victim Hae Min Lee said the attention from Serial “reopened old wounds” for their family. Despite this, HBO have adapted that case into a new documentary series – The Case Against Adnan Syed – which follows on from where the record-breaking podcast took off.

Serial, like many other popular true crime series, focuses on casting doubt on a conviction.

This format has an obvious draw for any audience – allowing them to play detective for themselves.

Some programme makers, including from HBO’s The Jinx, have even uncovered new evidence that prosecutors say have helped with cases.

Image copyright Reuters

Image caption The Case Against Adnan Syed started in March on HBO

True crime’s growing popularity means big business in other areas too. There’s now young YouTube influencers covering stories and in the UK, a new glossy monthly crime magazine was recently announced.

In the US, thousands attend CrimeCon every year – an event where fans pay hundreds to see experts and presenters from their favourite series.

A reporter from the New York Post pointed out most of last year’s attendees were female – and Bob in Milwaukee has found the same with his Dahmer tour. He describes his average customer as college-educated women aged 25-37.

So why is it that we are so intrigued – is it pure morbid curiosity?

British psychologist Emma Kenny, who regularly features agrees that we have a natural tendency to be voyeurs and be attracted to darker things.

This, of course, is nothing new and can be seen throughout human history.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Historical cases, like Jack the Ripper, have long-captured public fascination

She points to crime’s prevalence in other forms of entertainment too – including the dramas we watch and the books we read.

Emma says that watching crime shows can trigger chemical reactions in our bodies while we watch, while also affirming our moral views about right and wrong.

She says an interest in the genre is nothing bad but warns people, including myself, about watching too much.

“I think that for anybody who’s watching this kind of stuff you really need to know why you’re watching it, I think. Because you don’t want to desensitize yourself too much,” she tells me.

“Life is best spent around good people doing good things, exposing yourself to the best things in the world that you can expose yourself to… we should never be desensitized to the horror.”

All photographs copyright