#the youtube algorithm has been absolute hit for years now too | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dragonslaved · 3 years ago

Text

Raise Your Glass

fandom: the magnus archives chapters: 1/? word count: 2238 language: english

summary: tim is a streamer and jon is his moderator do not look at me

read on ao3

“Don’t forget to like and subscribe!”

There is a tasteful five seconds of music jingle before the video cuts. Jon sighs, rubbing at the bridge of his nose where his glasses sit. It’s one thing to moderate the streams, but there is a different kind of hell to editing them for a youtube VOD upload. Tim, thankfully, always makes sure to record a bit of additional off-stream footage to have at the beginning and end of each video for Jon to patch in, but it’s still a pain. Cutting out footage is easy enough, particularly for highlight cuts. But the four to five hours of raw recording is hard to edit, particularly when those watching the VODs can’t see the commentary made of the chat.

How he got talked into this is beyond himself. Something about Martin already working multiple jobs so he can only moderate a few nights a week. Tim, of course, has other things going on handling his own promotions and PR. Sasha took one look at what Tim was doing and decided she wanted nothing to do with it. It may have been smart on her part, if not for the fact he knows she’s doing some occasional tech work for Melanie’s crew.

Jon goes through these same mental conversations with himself every week when he’s collecting all the ‘Best Of’ clips together and splicing them into something resembling a coherent narrative.

But in Tim’s defense, the man is very good at reacting. Perhaps that was why his channel was doing well. Tim’s got the natural charisma and personality to draw in an audience, he’s interactive with the viewers, highly reactive to whatever’s happening in the game. It works. And Jon is, for better or worse, not a bad moderator for the chat.

No, the arrangement sadly, unfortunately, worked out very well for them both. A good following on the streams, and a moderate viewership on the video uploads later. And Jon did take some joy in adding a few personal editing touches to surprise even those who had been present for the stream watching playbacks. An occasional bit of text highlighting something, or an artful zoom in on something Tim missed that made the game harder for him for having looked it over.

Jon thinks fondly back to that half year Tim had considered being an influencer instead. It was a different kind of long-term work, but then again photos did not exactly get Tim’s personality through. No, video was best. And unscripted video was the purest, most distilled Tim an audience could want.

“-on?”

Tim pulled one earphone off, and Jon nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Jon. Been calling for a couple minutes now. You’re really in the zone, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he stammers, pulling the headphones off completely and resting them around his neck. “S-sorry, what is it?”

“Just checking how it’s going. Brought some coffee if you need it. I know it was a longer one, but I appreciate the work.”

Jon looks from him, to the mug in his hand and takes it with a quiet, “Ah.” A test sip and it’s still much too hot. “Thank you, it, um. Just about finished. Should be ready to upload in the morning at the usual time.”

“Thanks, mate.” Tim’s smile down at him could brighten the world. Maybe just Jon’s; he has to avert his eyes back to the program before his face heats up as much as the coffee in his hands. “You aren’t putting in snarky commentary in the text again, are you?”

“Would you be mad if I was?” Maybe a little too-hot-coffee is worth hiding the sly grin on his own face.

“I’d say go for it. Just be a little kind this time?”

“Maybe you should play something that isn’t a horror game next time.”

“I can’t help it. People love it, it’s what they vote for.”

“Oh, they do. But imagine the shock they’d have seeing you play something competently. Like a strategy puzzle game.”

Tim leans over his shoulder to look at the editing so far, hand on his other shoulder. “It’s not as engaging for the viewers though. People like watching someone be bad at a game.”

“Perhaps.” Tim’s always been one for casual contact, but it still makes Jon a little nervous. Not in a bad way, but in that way he hopes Tim never feels how hot his face gets. “But sometimes watching someone be exceptional at a game is worth a lot too.”

“Maybe… Wait.” Jon watches Tim slide the preview cursor back over a section, then over it forward again. “Are you kidding me?! I missed that key?”

So maybe Jon does see some joy in watching Tim be bad at things. He doesn’t try to hide the smile this time.

“You did.”

“You could have at least SAID something at the time! I wandered for an hour before moving on!”

“I take a more hands off backstage approach to moderating. It’s why you like me doing it.”

“God- Of all the-” Tim cuts himself off, watching the twenty seconds of footage again a few more times. It’s clear to anyone that knows him that Tim is memorizing the spot. Likely to do it again on his own time and do it properly.

That was something to be admired about Tim. Sure, he’ll put on an act and goof a bit for streams. But when he really cared about doing something well, he always put in the effort. The man could be determinedly serious about anything he really put his mind to. He usually succeeded.

But for the sake of Tim’s pride… “Would you like me to cut this bit out?” It’s tentative, an offer if Tim would rather Jon not include some of his more egregious mistakes. Tim only sighs.

“No. No… Leave it in. It’s fair to point out, and it’ll be funny in a few days.”

“So you’re saying it’s not funny yet.” “No. Not yet,” but even Tim can’t hide the smile in his tone. At least the man’s always had a good humor about himself. “Hey, Jon.”

He’d been distracted watching Timothy’s eyes and the way the monitor light hits those dark warm brown hues just so. “Hm?”

“I think we just hit a milestone last stream. What, something like two years now? What do you say we go out tonight and celebrate?”

“Oh. Um. I mean, we can, sure. I can meet you. The usual place?”

“Yeah. Bring your group while you’re at it.”

Jon stops the instinctive jolt. “Sure. I can. Bring them when we’re finished.” He forgets Tim knows about that.

“Great!” Tim gives a firm clap on the shoulder of Jon’s he’d been leaning on. “Can’t wait.”

The next morning comes with a loud and unignorable hangover. The curtains have, by some blessing, been pulled closed around the flat. Tim no doubt having some sympathy. Jon doesn’t always drink quite that heavily, but it was celebration and after a show. His group had only encouraged it, that much he remembered.

Well. His friends were likely assholes to his waking mind right now. No, the only friend Jon has right now is a hot cup of coffee at this hour of the morning. The warm bed calls to him, but he had made promises.

“Oh, coffee,” he coos over a sip as he sits at the table. “If I hadn’t promised Tim I’d work, we would not be meeting at this time. Just you and me and the algorithm this morning.”

The number of emails is alarming. All new subscribers or followers to the channel itself. There shouldn’t be such a surge after an off day. Had someone promo’d him while they were out last night? Well. This was part of Jon’s half of the job, figuring out where all this came from and determining if it was worth it to pursue further or not. A sip of coffee down and he gets to work.

“What… Is this.”

He adjusts his glasses, squinting at the screen and through the migraine. “Tim didn’t stream last night, we were at the pub…”

Contrary to what Jon knew, there was a history showing Tim had streamed for at least an hour last night with a fair amount of viewers at the time. Right around the time they were at the pub…

“What did you do.”

A couple quick clicks into the video history and there is absolutely a video from last night. The preview image alone has Tim in the pub, the camera facing a small crowd and some lights. His finger hesitates. What happened last night. What did they do.

Play.

The camera is shaky and trying to focus on Tim’s face. He was always a little - no, a lot - excitable when he drinks out. It eventually finds his face and settles in a steady shot, a crowd behind him and the lights are stage lights. “Hey, guys! So a surprise stream while we’re out. See, me and Jon came out to celebrate two years of the channel! They’re about to start, hold on.”

He moves his face out of the frame to show a small indoor stage with the lights focusing down and Jon can feel a sense of dread creeping up from his gut.

“Tell me we didn’t….”

The video keeps going, the chat wondering what’s going on, Tim almost never streams outdoors or anything like this. Question mark emojis fill the chat as Jon watches his drunken self climb on stage, flannel shirt and hair loose, guitar being strapped around him.

“Oh god.”

His last-night-self greets the crowd and thanks them for the short notice allowance of his group to play. Oh god, he must have been so drunk to agree to this. His band mates clambering up behind him and setting up. It’s only a few minutes before they start playing. Jon thinks for just a moment that maybe the chat doesn’t realize. Maybe they think Tim is just sharing a local band or something. The question marks continue until someone figures it out.

“Holy shit is that jsmod???”

It fills up. The whole chat fills up with shock and confused emojis. It goes so fast Jon can’t quite catch all the comments. And then it’s genuine support and excitement. No one had any idea Jon, the strict, quiet moderator, was the lead in a band.

Oh god, it was one of their more boisterous songs.

“That’s Jon! That’s his band! Haha, god it’s good to hear him sing again. Think we can keep them going for a bit, I’ll keep the stream going for now!”

Tim sounds entirely too giddy with this turn of events. And true to his word, the crowd somehow kept them on stage performing for a little under an hour. The video ends with Tim brightly thanking chat for joining on the surprise stream, and Jon has his head in his arms, tugging at his hair.

He may not recover his dignity from this.

“Go~od morning, boss!” Tim’s voice carries through the haze of irritation and fogginess with the tone of someone who committed crimes the night before and absolutely does not care.

Jon’s own voice comes through his pile of arms and oversized hoodie and hair, “I’m not your boss.” He can just faintly hear the sound of another cup of coffee being poured behind him, and then the quiet steps of Tim coming to sit next to him.

“You may as well be my manager with all the work you do behind the scenes handling my things.”

“If I were your manager, I’d fire you.”

The beat of silence falls between them heavy and expectant.

“Why-”

“The stream, last night, Tim!” Jon nearly explodes with it, his head shooting up and arms out, nearly hitting Tim in the face. “Why did you do that!”

For his benefit, Tim almost looks sorry.

“I… You said I could.”

“... What.”

“I asked if you were going to go play, and you said yes since the gang was there. I asked if I could stream it and you said yes.”

“I never would have agreed to that.”

“You did, though.”

The worst part about it is Jon cannot remember it. Jon, drunk, is a bit unpredictable at best. He may very well have agreed and he would never remember. God damn him.

“Fine. Fine, then this is me, sober, telling you now. If I, any time in the future, try to say it’s all right to film me playing: do not listen to me then. I am saying now do not film me.”

Tim’s eyes are focused intently on him. Really taking that in before nodding and voice gentle, “All right, Jon. Whatever you like.”

“Thank you, Tim. This isn’t going in the compilation by the way.”

“Nope, of course not! Not if you don’t want it.”

Jon runs a hand through his hair, looking at the analytics. “...That said. It did get you quite a record viewers for a surprise stream.”

“Oh yeah?” Tim finally gets up to lean in and look. Gives a low whistle. “Didn’t realize we’d done that well.”

“Hit a new milestone of subs as well.”

Tim gives his shoulder a gentle nudge with a crooked grin. “Sure I can’t talk you into letting your sets become a regular spot?”

“Tim.”

“All right! It was just a question.”

#the magnus archives #tma #magnuspod #jonathan sims #timothy stoker #do not archive #donotarchive #you ever come home from a 12 hour shift and spit out the dumbest thing ever #because I did #How did your friday night go everyone

2 notes · View notes

cardandpixel · 4 years ago

Text

9 Board Game YouTubers I Follow & Why (plus a few others)

In the literal dim and distant past when I started boardgaming (honestly, the biggest threat was tallow wax on your board), the internet was still accessed by whatever IP address you could remember off the top of your head (there’s no place like 127.0.0.1 as they sayI) - and the only TikTok was the clock ticking, waiting for half of Louise Nurding’s left leg to download only to realise it was Anne Widdecombe and you’d hit the wrong link on a BB. Boardgames had some quiet and shady corners of the internet, in those same Bulletin Boards, there was one for HeroQuest and Space Crusade when they came out. But sadly, if you wanted to see a boardgame being played or learn the rules, you either had to go round to your friend Tim’s house where he had a new chits-for-days wargame going, or sit down and actually read the rulebook yourself. As a result, I bought some interesting games in my time, including a game called Operation Overlord - a mighty chit-tastic WW2 N African campaign monster that I bought in desperation from the Games Workshop in Manchester on the first morning that it opened in 1979 (?) as we were so far back in the queue that there wasn’t a space marine to be had for miles. But now, we have a plethora of kindly folk available on our blistering shiny Windows NT 486sx machines to inform and delight us in full 8-bit glory. Everything from reviews, buying guides, rules tutorials and even painting & crafting guides, we can be bathing in just about whatever aspect of board or wargaming we so desire in an effort to stave off the clattering realisation that it’s been over 3 months since we spent any quality time with another breathing soul outside our houses. The question gets frequently asked on boardgame FaceAche forums “What YouTube channels are worth my time and why?” so in an effort to throw my own towel into that controversial ring, here’s my pick of probably 9ish, maybe more by the end, but let’s start with 9 in no particular order..... 1) 3 MINUTE BOARDGAMES

One of the first board games ‘er across the table (TM) and I bought together was a copy of Gloom from a little games and comic shop halfway round the world in Hamilton NZ, Mark 1 Comics. As we were achingly close to moving to NZ a few years ago, we’ve kept up with many aspects of what might have been our life over there, so it was a delight to discover Jarrod (and now Stephanie) on YouTube, a friendly and familiar accent reviewing board games. But it’s not just the NZ vibe that I love, Jarrod does a great job of cutting thru the hyperbole and bloat often associated with trying to keep YouTube vids ‘long for the algorithm’ (ugh) and just gives very pragmatic reasons for a game either joining or leaving his collection. He has a great approach, and it’s nice to see him finally on camera instead of the disembodied voice. Great reviewer, and Stephanie is utterly hilarious. 2) THE BROTHERS MURPH

Mike & Nick are two of the most engaging brothers on YouTube let alone just in the boardgaming community. Their series on thrift shop finds has dredged up some hilarious and often tragic specimens from the grand days of Palitoy, MB and Parker Games. They are also masters at ‘speed reviewing’ often piling reviews of 50 or 60 games into the same number of minutes. I think I favour the ‘don’t outstay your welcome’ approach to YouTube in general, and the Brothers Murph are at great ease with this philosophy and yet they take on simple party games thru to the heaviest euros with the same distillation equipment, and yet their reviews are never trivial or throw away. We had the chance to chat to Nick at Airecon this year and he was a lovely guy, slightly blown away by the fact that people liked his channel. He’s also an awesome artist too.

3) ACTUALOL

There are many reviewers on the web who have cost me a fair amount of money, the worst being Zee Garcia, however, a close second is Jon Purkiss aka Actualol. Jon has a terrifying gift for finding games, and especially ridiculously affordable games, that I buy on spec and then end up absolutely loving. Jon has a light and breezy style which is instantly engaging - I also really want his comfy chair (surely in exchange for a nice review on here Jon???). His videos are tidy and concise and yet still convey a deep enthusiasm and joy for games. His reviews very clearly portray what the setting of the game is and what you’ll be doing, without getting embroilled in the rules. He always has great footage of the game on the table (please reviewers - look at the ratio of your face to the game you’re talking about - less than 10% game and i’m walkin’) and often favours the less pricey end of the market which suits me fine. Brilliant games I love thanks to Jon include: Second Chance, Magic Maze and Ninja Academy

4) OUR FAMILY PLAYS GAMES

There’s not much to be said about Mik & Starla Fitch that cannot be gained from watching a mere 3-4 minutes of their channel. For sheer exuberance aimed squarely at a love for bringing families together via our glorious hobby, you cannot top these guys. If you are ever - EVER - feeling slightly lacklustre about gaming or losing your mojo for whatever reason - heck if you are just feeling slightly down, treat yourself to 10 minutes in the company of these two excellent human beings. Their reviews and playthru’s have all the humanity you need in a game and after five minutes you are thinking “Is the US too far to go just for a gaming evening?” We’d both utterly love to sit across the table from these lovely people and just play, and I can’t say that about every reviewer, I’ll be honest. Their reviews are often centred around unloved classics (watch their vid dedicated to why they love Catan as an example - you’ll be clicking Buy Now before your know it) and also some great quirky unknowns that I’m trying to hunt down even now. They’ve just had a brilliant couple of boosts from both a spot of Good Morning America recently, and becoming reviewers for the mighty Dice Tower. I’m immensely grateful for a tweet by Rodney Smith for pointing me in their direction, my social media is a much brighter place with the Fitch family in it.

5) RAHDO RUNS THROUGH

“Heeeeey Everybody”. One of the first board game reviewers I ever caught on YouTube was the inimitable Richard Ham aka Rahdo. And I’m so glad I did. I would genuinely never sit down and try and learn a game from one of Rahdo’s playthrus, they are what I imagine being in a wind tunnel full of 50 tonnes of feathers is like. BUT and this is crucial - if I want an idea of what a game is going to feel like to play, there is no finer deliverer of the remote game experience than Mr Richard Ham. His unique ability to explain how a game is going to work, turn by turn; the decisions you will make; the things you’ll have to consider; the short and long term goals; are all brilliantly covered in one of Rahdo’s videos. His ability to make different choices for his ‘ghost partner’ Jen (who does exist in real life, we have bought jewelry off her, she’s lovely) also adds a real dynamism to the games, showcasing the flexibility in a design for different play strategies. Rahdo tends towards 2 player games and usually at the heavier end of the scale, but if there’s a game you are thinking of buying, check Mr Ham out first!

6) WATCH IT PLAYED

It’s often been said that Canadians are some of the politest folk on the planet, but when it comes to ranking Canadians, well, I’m sure they’d be too humble to rank each other so I’ll have to. Rodney Smith is the loveliest man in the world. There, end of article. But it’s true. We’ve been watching Rodney since we first got confused about the rules for Mice & Mystics (which we still got wrong but that wasn’t Rodney’s fault) and his ever chirpy, ever positive approach to his rules rundowns is utterly remarkable and frankly, enviable. And it’s his attention to detail and clarity for explaining rules that have rightly made Rodney one of the most important resources in the gaming hobby. If you have ever struggled over a rulebook and haven’t raced to Watch It Played, I will guarantee you will have spent far longer on that rulebook and lost way more hair than you ever needed to. We had the great honour of playing Rajas of the Ganges with Rodney at Airecon in 2019, and I mugged up on the rules sooo much. Regular imbibers of this rag will know my sloth for reading rulebooks is legendary but fortunately ‘er across the table (TM) loves them. But, for the 3 days running up to our trip to Harrogate, I did nothing but read that rulebook - this was THE Rodney Smith, you can’t get a rule wrong with Rodney. But of course, nerves kicked in and I could barely remember the rules of Snap, but the nicest man in the world could not have been nicer. Really, quantum mechanics has proved it. He was just the same man off the computer telly. Funny, engaging, warm and happy to chat as well as play (which I was also really nervous about doing!), if you don’t watch Rodney, are you really internetting?

7) TABLETOP MINIONS

“Pachow” From boardgames to wargames. As well as my slight addiction to cardboard, my other opiate overlord is 28mm plastic miniatures. Specifically those involved in tabletop skirmish games like Malifaux, 7TV, Fallout Wasteland Warfare, GuildBall and a smattering of others. Though recently more focused on the frankly insane amount of content being released by Games Workshop, Tabletop Minions is presented by the splendid Uncle Atom. (In fact, I identify his content so much as Uncle Atom’s stuff that I honestly had to double check the name of the channel for this article!). My plastic habit uncle (sounds so wrong, but so true) has possibly the gentlest delivery of anyone on the internet. It’s not so much content, as therapy. I know the net is awash with AMSR channels at the mo, but if you don’t want to listen to some overmonetized southern californian with some bubble wrap and a large capsule condenser mic, just hop over to TTM and listen to the Uncle for 5 minutes. He’s like a soothing bubble bath of content about painting figures, philosophy of the hobby, general art & design principles, and great life advice. He also wears a fez.

8) GIRL PAINTING

“Hello Tchoobies!” I painted my first 28mm figure when i was about 12ish - it was, ironically, a space marine of some sort - the old clunky Ral Partha ones. It looked terrible, but each model got a bit better till I stopped for some reason a few years later. When I got into Malifaux a few years ago (ie decades, several of them, later), I knew I was going to have to get back into painting; heaps of grey plastic does not a skirmish game make. (Little did I know I would have to revisit my microscopy days either when assembling damn Bayou Gremlins!) Two channels were recommended to me, the Esoteric Order of Gamers (more later) and Girl Painting. EOG put me on the path to believing I could paint again, but Alexandra at Girl Painting actually made me believe I could learn to do it well. GP’s approach to painting figures, terrain and vehicles is based on solid art theory. Her explanation of colour relationships and the colour wheel is something I can quote to this day. All of the techniques that I lean on so heavily in day to day painting both for table and display I learnt from Girl Painting. Correct use of washes, wet blending, non-metallic metals, shading, drybrushing, highlighting, model reading, all of it from studying intently, often with a brush actually in my hand while watching the channel. I cannot recommend GP enough if you want to put paint to plastic. Whatever your ability, you will learn something from this hidden gem of a channel.

9) ESOTERIC ORDER OF GAMERS

Another dang fine antipodean and another slightly unusual channel. I have a terrible, terrible memory when it comes to rules. In our early days, we also had a a lot of games with seemingly very over-bloated rulebooks - FFG games basically. I suddenly realised what I wanted was to lift the lid of a box and find in the lid, a summary of the important stuff i needed to remember about the game. Apparently I was not the only one. In 2013 a chap known as Universal Head started publishing an amazing series of rules summaries which condensed down some of the bloatiest rulesbooks down to often one or 2 pages of A4. It was a (pardon the pun) gamechanger for me. I can’t count the number of games in our collection that have a friendly sheet of A4 now as the first thing you see when you open the box. They are brilliant. And he’s still doing it to this day. I would argue that the more useful leg to his activities is the website rather than YouTube channel, but his channel does have the aforementioned brilliant figure painting tutorials, unboxing videos and some crafting stuff. The website is definitely the place for the rules summaries and also a fantastic resource for build-it-yourself foamcore box inserts. Though Folded Space have now made box inserts pretty affordable, there’s still no feeling like the satisfaction of building your own, and I would argue that some of EoG’s designs actually make more sense than some of the Folded Space ones anyway. AND THE OTHER ONES (Who probably don’t really need the exposure, but hey, only 11 people probably read this so......) Why aren’t these on the list above? Just because I wanted to highlight some of the more marginal channels above or more specialist rather than the pure reviewers. SHUT UP & SIT DOWN Possibly my favourite channel on YouTube, whose name sounds more like a menacing Yorkshire greeting than a boardgame channel. SU&SD seem to be a real Marmite issue on the board game communities. And I genuinely don’t understand it. Yes, their reviews are often really funny but honestly, if that’s all you take away then you are missing some amazingly detailed and thought provoking work. Quinns and crew’s reviews are some of the most measured and balanced reviews in the gameyverse. Their reasoning for the conclusions they come to are incredibly well thought through and often very surprising based on the tone of the rest of the review. They have steered me to some games I would never have looked twice at and steered me away from some very shiny games that I might have blown a lot of money on otherwise. Flagposting great alternatives is also a signature of their reviews, and that again has often lead me to some fantastic games. We don’t always agree (their recent review of 10 Oink Games was savage imho) but we always disagree for the right reasons. Again, I would argue their website is actually a better overall resource, especially their podcasts which are superb, but all their content is fantastic.

in a highly similar vein I would add NO PUN INCLUDED. Efka & Elaine produce some of the most thoughtful and intelligent boardgame review content today, and often for some of the deepest and most complex games. The joy of boardgaming is that it is highly subjective and there are lots of times when NPI like/dislike a game that I do/don’t, but they are engaging and warm enough as presenters to hit you with a gentle subtext that says “It’s ok - I know we like this game, we get that you don’t, it doesn’t make any of us bad people, just people y’know, have a sandwich with us” Efka criticising a game reminds me of when Dennis Healey once described an argument with Geoffrey Howe as being ‘savaged by a dead sheep’, though not in the cynical manner of the original. The criticism is loaded with that crucial dose of ‘hear me out’ that is sadly lacking in 90% of all other reviewers out there. Efka & Elaine are no GoggleBox reviewers, they are the real deal - they genuinely understand how games work and why. The sheer moral turmoil that Efka expressed over the cultural issues in Rising Sun was some of the most thoughtful YouTube content I have ever seen. I just wanted to do a little shout out to Johannes & Sunniva at BOARD GAMING RAMBLINGS - I don’t have as much to say as they are relatively new on my radar, but I have really enjoyed their content so far and find them to be like one of those adorable gaming couples that you might see every once in a while at your gaming group and have a blast with, and then not see for months and go “Awh - I really miss Johannes & Sunniva - where’d they go?” that feeling, you know the one. Adorable, with a hint of the esoteric. Also, a quick but important mention to the other titan of boardgame rules explanation that is Paul Grogan of GAMING RULES!. Like Rodney Smith, Paul is meticulous about rules explanation and is really clear and simple to follow, even for very heavy games, which Paul tends to do more of than Rodney, which is probably why I end up watching Paul slightly less, but certainly not for any less quality. Paul has such a reputation in the industry that he now works closely with many designers and publishers to help craft the best rulebooks around as a consultant. So that’s it - congrats for making it through folks. Didn’t think it was going to run this long, but turns out.... I quite like a lot of the YouTubers I watch - who knew? Until next time... happy gaming y’all.

2 notes · View notes

mywebfoot · 5 years ago

Text

Cyberbullying is justice...

...and other lessons from Revenge Note (Webdrama 2017).

This is a review of a drama that I am watching currently. I got sucked in via Youtube recommendations, and it made me think, particularly in light of recent events around cyberbullying. I hope you can read through till the end.

What does a member of the royal family, a member of a kpop group, and the average teenager have in common?

Cyberbullying.

Sulli’s suicide is said to be her escape from depression, created in no small part by the endless criticism of faceless commentators. Meghan Markle recently gave an interview where she could barely hold on to her composure, talking about how she was first pregnant, then a new mother while the press tore her apart. I’ve been a new mom, and fending off criticism is practically a feature of new motherhood. My heart ached to think of her every imagined weakness and shortcoming being amplified and echoed back to her.

Some say that cyberbullying can simply be switched off. A recent article in Singapore’s Straits Times has a faceless “netizen” offering celebrities this simple exit - just don’t get onto social media if you can’t “get used to it.” That position denies three things - the celebrities’ right to promote, their right to respectful conversation, and the wrongness of being cruel with words.

Which is where this drama review begins. Revenge Note is a web-drama, starring young actors and k-pop performers. On the surface, it seems to have nothing to say. In many ways, the plot is pure wish-fulfillment. A klutzy teenaged girl begins the first year of high school. She gains the attention of her high school hottie classmate and of her brother’s best friend - who just happens to be a rising kpop-star. High school social life is not all unicorns and rainbows, and the characters in this world are from a predictable range of queens, gangsters and awful teachers.

What’s different about this high school fairy tale is that Ho Goo Hee (the first two syllables of her name, Ho Gu, sounds like the term for a pushover) has a mysterious app, called Revenge Note. She is a pushover, yielding to the people who push her around. Even her mom favors her smart elder brother over her. One day, something bad happens to her, and the app mysteriously appears on her phone. It prompts her: “Will you be a Revenge Queen?”. It’s a digital, dark fairy godmother, almost as if Maleficent were an algorithm. All she needs is a name, even if it’s an internet handle, and the app sends a message to the target. Each time she enters one, havoc is wreaked upon the person’s life, and eventually they are brought to justice. The punishment is always in a poetically similar way to the original offence. One day the target is Goo Hee’s bullies. Another, it’s an act of justice, exposing the pervert school teacher who is threatening her friend.

It seemed like more teenaged wish fulfillment to me. After all, if you find yourself in highschool, where social mores are sharpened by razor blade netizen tongues, then certainly there ought to be an app for countering that.

Yet, as the show progresses, we see that Go Hee is herself turning into judge and jury. Three times, we see her hesitate before she hits the submit button, three times, she asks herself if she should not wield her power to execute the offender. Once, she comes very close to entering the wrong name.

This is where this little web drama went from fun to smart, from comedy to commentary. In the beginning, it made you root for Go Hee - clearly, eliminating the bullies is to be lauded. Then it showed that one human being can have too much power, and his or her judgement may not reflect the truth of the matter. It clearly illustrates that the judgement of a single person is not equal to justice.

Therein lies the thoughtful message of this well-written story - the root of cyberbullying is an individual’s outraged sense of justice. It is not the deliberate pursuit of “hate” that creates cyberbullies, it is instead an emotionally volatile response to an observed offence. “Hate”, as it is often characterized, is a potent concept, but strangely too simplistic. Instead, the online commenter believes that lines were crossed. He/she loves justice, and therefore there is no wrong in punishing the offender.

This reaction chain leaves no room for due process, no space for empathy, no ideals of mercy, no consideration of reformation. These are all things that need time, and space. On the internet, there is neither time nor space. Responses are instant, emotionally driven, and amplified to an incredible volume. Human beings at the other end of this loudspeaker can choose to go deaf or listen and be excoriated. There is no turning it off, because one does not need to hear a sonic wave to feel the impact. The earth shakes when millions of others listen, and respond, and join the deafening chorus.

The Revenge Note is a frightening tool. It’s similar to another incarnation of the fairy godmother, the genie, who takes your wishes literally. As you say, master. It is absolute, irreversible, and vulnerable to any turn of phrase.

So what’s the lesson of Revenge Note? I am at the 9th of 12 episodes. I am not sure where it is going with the power that Go Hee now wields. I hope it ends with Go Hee discarding Revenge Note, and relying on her empathy, her friends, and her family to help her get through high school. You know, those old, slow things that seem to have little power.

#revenge note #kim hyang gi #cha eun woo #park solomon #webdrama #sulli #meghan markle #cyber bullies

23 notes · View notes

lifejustgotawkward · 6 years ago

Text

My Favorite Albums of 2018

Now that we’ve reached the end of December, I’ve compiled a list of my favorite albums from this year. I’m particularly proud of the emphasis that I placed on listening to new music by women, which will be obvious as you make your way through the post. As I hope is the case every time I make these annual rankings, my goal is not so much that anyone should be awed by my short paragraphs of explanation (doubtful since my schedule didn’t allow me enough time to edit my writing too closely - let me know if there are any weird errors!), but rather that my mentions of these artists will spread positive awareness of them. If I can share my appreciation for a singer or band and subsequently inspire someone to become a fan, the work will have been worth it. Have a good time with this, everybody!

Tagging @shadowfaxstables, @entrancedintime, @mr-top-secret, @walkingwiththemoon, @thehoodedone, @yung-lawsuit, @oystersaintforme - I hope you enjoy the music!

15. Seinabo Sey, I’m a Dream

Standout Tracks: “Never Get Used To,” “I Owe You Nothing,” “My Eye,” “Truth,” “Breathe,” “Good in You”

I might never have heard of Gambian-Swedish singer-songwriter Seinabo Sey if I didn’t regular check out Pitchfork reviews, although luckily I started listening to I’m a Dream before reading Katherine St. Asaph‘s piece, which unfairly marks Sey’s album with a 6.0 grade. Sey’s second album, following Pretend (2015), continues her interest in marrying soul/R&B with pop, moving through different tempi to exhibit her perspectives on romantic and familial relationships. Most inspirational among the songs is “Breathe,” an empowering reminder from Sey to herself that no matter what hardships she endures, she is valuable and magical.

14. Black Belt Eagle Scout, Mother of My Children

Standout Tracks: “Soft Stud,” “Keyboard,” “Mother of My Children,” “Yard,” “I Don’t Have You in My Life,” “Sam, A Dream”

There may not have been a more impressive debut single in 2018 than “Soft Stud,” a searing ode to unrequited lust. The rest of Katherine Paul’s album is fairly quiet by comparison, but her first full-length project as Black Belt Eagle Scout burns with longing. A self-described “radical indigenous queer feminist,” Paul draws from her experiences growing up in the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community in Washington to tell stories both deeply personal to her and universal in the desires they communicate. Album closer “Sam, A Dream” is the best example of how Paul blends those two concepts, taking a minimalist lyrical approach to expressing her love for the song’s subject before spending a solid two and a half minutes on a guitar solo to finish the record, a sound so beautiful that you feel like you’re floating when you hear it.

13. Blossoms, Cool Like You

Standout Tracks: “Cool Like You,” “Unfaithful,” “How Long Will This Last?” “Between the Eyes,” “Lying Again,” “Love Talk”

For those of us who love a good tune that pays homage to 80s New Wave and synthpop, Blossoms are your band. They don’t seem to have made anywhere near as much of an impact in the US as they have in their native UK, and British critics weren’t exactly bowled over by this sophomore album (despite it hitting #4 on the charts), but I’ll bet that most of today’s young American bands would kill to put out a single half as catchy as “Cool Like You,” or anything close to the upbeat yet still sort of bittersweet perfection of “Love Talk.”

12. Shannon Shaw, Shannon in Nashville

Standout Tracks: “Bring Her the Mirror,” “Broke My Own,” “Leather, Metal, Steel,” “Love I Can’t Explain,” “Cold Pillows,” "Make Believe”

Stepping away from her role as frontwoman of Oakland, California’s surf-punk outfit Shannon and the Clams, Shannon Shaw’s debut solo album Shannon in Nashville is an entrancing collection of songs deeply inspired by 60s girl groups, Roy Orbison and, of course, Dusty “Dusty in Memphis” Springfield. Even if you’d never heard Shaw’s voice before now, it would instantly become iconic to your ears thanks to melodies that sound just as timeless as their predecessors from half a century ago.

11. Say Sue Me, Where We Were Together

Standout Tracks: “Let It Begin,” “But I Like You,” “Old Town,” “After Falling Asleep,” “About the Courage to Become Somebody’s Past,” “Coming to the End”

Korean-American indie rock band Say Sue Me have a sweet, light touch that makes both their snappy power-pop efforts like “But I Like You” and “Old Town” and also somewhat more serious-minded guitar showcases like “Let It Begin,” “About the Courage to Become Somebody’s Past” (an instrumental that gives me real “This Magic Moment” vibes) and “Coming to the End” equally appealing. I don’t speak or understand Korean, so I don’t know how lead singer Sumi Choi’s lyrics of “After Falling Asleep” translate, but the fact that I love it anyway is a testament to the fact that fantastic music always transcends barriers of language.

10. Robyn, Honey

Standout Tracks: “Missing U,” “Human Being” (feat. Zhala), “Baby Forgive Me,” “Send to Robin Immediately,” “Honey,” “Ever Again”

I didn’t expect to love Robyn’s newest album upon first listen back in October, but now I do, so here we are. A couple of months spent absorbing her woozy beats has made me appreciate Robyn’s ability to evoke moods that feel specific to her particular talent as an artist. The loss that inspired the album - the death of one of her closest friends, Christian Falk, in 2014 - pervades nearly all of the tracks, but they are relatable and will still make you want to dance, closer to light than to darkness. Even in songs like “Human Being” and “Baby Forgive Me,” where the rhythms and (to cite the latter’s credits in the album liner notes) “sad robot voice” play with notions of human artistic creation juxtaposed with machine-manufactured products, Robyn herself is always in front and center, and in the album’s crown jewel, the title track “Honey,” her maturity as a storyteller is evident.

9. cupcakKe, Eden

Standout Tracks: “PetSmart,” “Cereal and Water,” “Garfield,” “Prenup,” “Blackjack,” “A.U.T.I.S.M.”

All Hail Queen cupcakKe. On her second album of the year, following January’s Ephorize, the Chicago rapper continues to show why she’s one of the best women in the game. “PetSmart” starts things off incredibly, exhibiting one entertaining brag after another, then the rest of the album displays more of her often laugh-out-loud humor, endless pop culture references, a bunch of her quintessential sex-centric jams (”Garfield,” “Typo,” “Blackjack”) and a song dedicated to people on the autism spectrum (”A.U.T.I.S.M.”). Every now and then there are moments that indicate that cupcakKe still has room to grow, like when she uses the R slur on “Garfield,” but ultimately her heart is in the right place; besides the aforementioned “A.U.T.I.S.M.,” she has also recorded songs in support of the LGBTQ+ community (”LGBT,” “Crayons”), so I am certain that she’ll eventually learn from her mistakes. As one YouTube commenter wrote on one of her videos: “She should be where Cardi B is.” Indeed.

8. Chelsea Jade, Personal Best

Standout Tracks: “Ride or Cry,” “Pitch Dark,” “Colour Sum,” “Laugh It Off,” “Over Sensitive,” “High Beam”

New Zealand-based singer-songwriter Chelsea Jade has not yet hit it big in America like her younger compatriot, Lorde, but there is an ample proof on Personal Best that Jade can craft earworms with memorable hooks and intelligent lyrics. (Seriously, when was the last time you heard the word liminal used in a pop song, as Jade does on “Laugh It Off”?) She has her foot in the door in America as a lyricist, credited as one of the writers of this year’s Chainsmokers single “You Owe Me,” but one hopes that the “Accidental Dream Pop Hero” of Auckland, NZ will claim her own chart-topping stardom one day.

7. Beach House, 7

Standout Tracks: “Lemon Glow,” “L’Inconnue,” “Black Car,” “Lose Your Smile,” “Girl of the Year,” “Last Ride”

I thought I knew what to expect from a Beach House album after following their career for the past few years, but “Lemon Glow” and “Black Car” hit me like gorgeous sledgehammers anyway when they were released earlier this year, still taking my breath away every time I hear them. I don’t know how Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally manage it, but they keep finding sophisticated ways to update their mining of the same musical territory in a tried-and-true comfort zone. Beach House’s secret seems to be that they have deduced all the algorithms necessary to hypnotize listeners. 7 is perhaps less exciting to me than the duo’s last album, Thank Your Lucky Stars, since the freshness of first being introduced to their music in 2015 has faded, but I’m glad to report that their new songs are absolutely worthy of praise.

6. Soccer Mommy, Clean

Standout Tracks: “Still Clean,” “Cool,” “Your Dog,” “Last Girl,” “Skin,” “Wildflowers”

Nashville, Tennessee’s Sophie Allison, who performs under the moniker Soccer Mommy, wowed me with this ten-track album full of indie rock gems. At age 20, she is ready to take the music industry by storm, evoking her heroes Liz Phair and Mitski while always maintaining a recognizable individual style. This is most apparent on the more upbeat tracks - “Skin,” for example, is a brutally honest articulation of yearning, and if ever there was a year that needed a blistering takedown of abusive relationships like “Your Dog” as its rallying cry, it’s 2018.

5. Courtney Barnett, Tell Me How You Really Feel

Standout Tracks: “Hopefulessness,” “Charity,” “Need a Little Time,” “Nameless, Faceless,” “Help Your Self,” “Sunday Roast”

It took a while for Courtney Barnett’s latest album to sink in with me. Tell Me How You Really Feel is the definition of a slow burn; it has just as much of Barnett’s trademark dry humor, but it also brings to the surface a sensitivity beyond what she revealed on her breakthrough album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit (2015). Most of all, I think she’s enjoying exploring what she can do with her melodies, like the guitar solo on “Help Your Self,” her incorporation of Margaret Atwood’s famous “men are afraid, women are afraid” quote in the chorus of the #MeToo/#TimesUp anthem “Nameless, Faceless” or the amount of time it takes her to reach the “Keep on keeping on/You know you're not alone” part of “Sunday Roast.” Listening to new music by Courtney Barnett is as rewarding an experience as any modern-day alternative rock fan could want.

4. Caroline Rose, LONER

Standout Tracks: “More of the Same,” “Jeannie Becomes a Mom,” “Getting to Me,” “To Die Today,” “Soul No. 5,” “Animal”

I was magnetized to Caroline Rose’s music from the intriguing opening notes of “More of the Same,” the first of many riffs that LONER gifts to us. My favorite track is “Jeannie Becomes a Mom,” which continues a classic singer-songwriter tradition of relating the ups and downs of another woman’s life, especially her dreams for a brighter future. She also moves through a few genres besides indie rock with skill, employing elements of trip-hop on “To Die Today” and R&B on “Talk” and “Animal” in engaging ways. (According to Rose in a press release, LONER is “as much inspired by Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears as it was late-’70s punk,“ which I can believe.) Rose’s sense of humor might be the best part of the album, though, as seen in her sharp wit and sarcasm on “Money,” “Soul No. 5” and “Bikini,” the last of which is a bouncy number mocking the industries that compel women to become sexualized puppets tailor-made for public consumption.

I also find this Out Magazine quote from Caroline Rose about how she incorporates her own sexuality enlightening: “When I was first starting, I was kind of afraid to make being queer a part of my identity for fear that it would consume it, because that happens to a lot of artists, unfortunately. When you’re first starting, that is the way people identify you cause that’s all you get. You get one elevator pitch and if you’re lucky, a 30 second clip of what your music sounds like—and that’s the pitch. But I hit a point where I was like, ‘That’s dumb.’ People should be as much of themselves as possible, ‘cause then everyone would be super unique. No one else is you. You are independent of other people and you can do whatever you want with your identity and your body and the way you dress and the way you act. I realized I should just be myself—middle fingers up and no fucks given, ‘cause life is really short. My life is zipping by and I’m okay with that, but I want to make sure I do it right.”

3. Wild Moccasins, Look Together

Standout Tracks: “Boyish Wave,” “Temporary Vase,” “Longtime Listener,” “Missing You (the Most),” “No Muse,” “Waterless Cup”

Few bands that I discovered in 2018 have dazzled me quite like Houston, Texas’s Wild Moccasins. When the pair at the heart of the group, vocalist/keyboardist Zahira Gutierrez and guitarist Cody Swann, ended their romantic relationship a few years ago, they turned their complex jumble of reasons and reactions into art. But Look Together isn’t a mopey breakup record; “Longtime Listener,” the song that immediately turned me into a fan, is a slice of New Wave heaven, while “Missing You (the Most)” and “No Muse” are just as jaunty but dig into the more personal side of the duo’s songwriting. “Missing” ends with a repetition of the lines “You only want me if you get the chance to change me/You only want me if you get the chance to save me,” while “No Muse,“ a pointed examination of how men (especially artists) undermine and belittle the women in their relationships, features this cogent chorus: “I’m no use to you unless I’m undressed/I’m no muse to you/You cut me in two unless I say yes/I’m no muse to you/And you can sing about it all you want/I must not want it bad enough, bad enough.”

2. Miya Folick, Premonitions

Standout Tracks: “Thingamajig,” “Premonitions,” “Stock Image,” “Stop Talking,” “Deadbody,” “Baby Girl”

Thanks to Pitchfork, I first heard of Miya Folick when her single “Deadbody” came out this past March. It immediately struck me as a manifesto for our new age, where women can move forward with confidence thanks to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements. That song alternately demonstrates subdued menace and loud, unapologetic anger, but “Stock Image” and “Premonitions” show that Folick has a strong leaning towards modern pop music; “Stop Talking” is so commercially accessible that it’s as much of a bop as any sugary confection by Carly Rae Jepsen. Folick’s debut album - after having released a number of EPs and standalone tracks over the past few years - showcases a woman whose voice and songwriting abilities have limitless potential, and she’s only just getting started. To quote some of Folick’s lyrics from “Stop Talking,” seemingly a summary of her artist’s statement: “You have to make a choice/Don’t be an accidental voice/We have to speak with grace/We will become the words we say.“

1. Mitski, Be the Cowboy

Standout Tracks: “Geyser,” “Me and My Husband,” “Nobody,” “Pink in the Night,” “Washing Machine Heart,” “Two Slow Dancers”

It’s no mistake that so many end-of-year best-of lists have placed Be the Cowboy at the top of their rankings. Mitski’s fifth album finds her wading through deep pools of emotion in brief, lovely bursts of song, with twelve out of the fourteen tracks running two and a half minutes or shorter. It was pretty difficult for me to pick only a handful of highlights from an album that is so impressive in every conceivable way, so just know that every cut is a masterpiece. She puts words to the feelings we all carry inside, diamonds that glisten for fleeting moments but linger in the memory for a long time afterward.

HONORABLE MENTIONS (alphabetical)

Cher, Dancing Queen (”Dancing Queen,” ”Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight),” “The Name of the Game,” “Waterloo,” ”Fernando,” ”One of Us”)

Farao, Pure-O (”Marry Me,” “Get Along,” “Luster of the Eyes,” “Cluster of Delights,” “Gabriel,” “Triumph Over Me”)

Florence + The Machine, High as Hope (”Hunger,” “Big God,” “Patricia,” “100 Years,” “The End of Love,” “No Choir”)

Juliana Hatfield, Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton-John (”I Honestly Love You,” ”Physical,” “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” “Xanadu,” “Dancin’ ‘Round and ‘Round,” “Make a Move on Me”)

Marie Davidson, Working Class Woman (”Your Biggest Fan,” ”Work It,” ”The Psychologist,” “Day Dreaming,” “So Right” [although the extended version is even better since the opening lines are brought back in the last thirty seconds, making the song’s ending even more effective], “Burn Me”)

HONORABLE MENTIONS #2: EPs (alphabetical)

Ellis, The Fuzz (”The Drain,” “Frostbite,” ”What a Mess”)

Hatchie, Sugar & Spice (”Sleep,” ”Try,” “Bad Guy”)

King Princess, Make My Bed (”Talia,” “Upper West Side,” “Holy”)

Margaret Glaspy, Born Yesterday (”Before We Were Together,” ”One Heart and Two Arms,” “I Love You, Goodnight”)

Sevdaliza, The Calling (”Soul Syncable,” “Energ1,” “Human Nature”)

9 notes · View notes

thesinglesjukebox · 6 years ago

Video

youtube

YUBIN - LADY

[7.22]

Wonder Girl turned City Woman...

Iain Mew: Sometimes you want to carefully pick out a chocolate from your selection, and sometimes you want to take your whole '80s city pop box and eat them a row at a time without even consulting the key. [6]

Jessica Doyle: I did go on a city pop-listening binge after hearing this, and concluded that for all the cosplay there was something just slightly off about Yubin's presentation. It may be as simple as me hearing lower-quality production and mistaking the less forceful sound for wistfulness. It may be that Yubin comes off as too confident to sell the listener-flattering idea of the strong façade being no more than a few millimeters thick. "Lady" might have worked better with a singer whose voice was a little breathier, a little wispier, a little [The Jukebox apologizes for this attempt to pass off Hyelim bias as an actual review.] [5]

Thomas Inskeep: K-Pop goes city pop with this debut solo single from Yubin, formerly of K-pop queens Wonder Girls. This isn't an exact replica -- it's more like a take on the City Pop revival, from SoundCloud artists like Night Tempo (whose 2016 remix of Mariya Takeuchi's City Pop landmark "Plastic Love" sounds like a definite influence on "Lady"). The video even features scenes of Yubin driving along darkened city streets! That said, there's also a bit of Stock Aitken Waterman here, especially in those ultra-'80s handclaps and the drums -- Sinitta calling! And then, then, there's the lyrics and Yubin's sassy deliver thereof: "Stop beating around the bush," she sings, "Be up front about it/I made time especially for you ... There are tons of boys/Who lined up for me." Lay down the law girl, and tell him what time it is! #Summer2018Anthem achieved. [10]

Julian Axelrod: There's "disco" -- the kind of half-hearted pastiche with empty Bee Gees harmonies and limp Chic guitar that's become an escape hatch for boring artists of all stripes in the past few years -- and then there's disco. "Lady" has a million tiny details that prove it's the real deal, from the swooping strings to the sidewinding pre-chorus melody to the programmed drums that wallop in all the right places. But the most important distinction is a palpable joy, and Yubin's powerhouse vocal struts, shimmies, and soars with the liberation of a woman who's truly free. When that guitar solo arrives to carry you up to disco heaven, you know you're dealing with the genuine article. [8]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Yubin going full city pop is a bit of a surprise; Yes, Wonder Girls were the absolute queens of retro in the K-Pop universe, but Yubin is commonly known as the group's rapper, and a solo single without a single line of rap, rather opting for the disco diva approach, is a bit out of left field. However, it's in the execution of this concept, both sonically and aesthetically, where "Lady" really hits. Yubin simultaneously projects energy and sophistication in every note, and if this is the musical path she will take in her future solo endeavours, we'll be definitely on board. [7]

Will Rivitz: Now that vaporwave has been passé for long enough to appreciate through the more neutral lens afforded by a true retrospective, we're finally in a place where we can appreciate the artists in the scene whose music is good enough to have stood the test of time and still be worthwhile five years after the scene's peak -- namely, Saint Pepsi (or the artist formerly known as Saint Pepsi) and absolutely no one else. Fortunately, Yubin's future funk approximation lifts Pepsi's vibrantly torpid '80s cheese with aplomb, absolutely nailing the lushness that makes his sound still tantalizing. Cheap neon is better when it's not ironic. [8]

Ryo Miyauchi: The glossy '80s revival fueling Wonder Girls's final full-length Reboot lured me into this then-new thing in my life called K-pop, but before I can tune into more from the retro queens, they unfortunately decided to call it quits. So it's very satisfying to have Yubin from the group continue where the group left off with this glamorous city-pop anthem. More than the sound, I'm won by her confident sass. "I ain't got time," she snaps at her foolish prospects in romance, and her off-to-the-next attitude is one I longed to find in other songs by her peers whose claims to "bring the boys out" didn't really resonate beyond pure pop gesture. [8]

Alfred Soto: I played this twice last night while gelling my hair and applying discreet pats of cologne to my neck, moving my shoulders to the beat. It's got a welcome slink, and it does smell of Saturday night, but its recombination of several smooth dance sounds is more rehearsed than felt. So what. It's Saturday night. [7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: While labels like Matador allowed for Shibuya-kei to gain visibility for otherwise Japanese music-ignorant Westeners, city pop received widespread love from manners far more Internet-dependent: specialized blogs, YouTube algorithms, and freely available mixes (not to mention vaporwave/future funk, numerous reissues, and the rise of Japanese tastemakers and record store owners). While none of this seemed to happen with the help of streaming services, it was a natural extension of the musical trends that gained traction since the turn of the decade. The increasing popularity of new age and soft rock, as well as the general decline of scuzzy lo-fi pop, is well-aligned with city pop's relatively pristine veneer and indulgent ventures into AOR, quiet storm, jazz fusion, disco, and funk. These shifts in prevailing musical tastes are a natural response to what happened musically during the mid-late 2000s, but also feel like a quasi-extension of postmodern sincerity and the (non-conservative) political/social ideologies of the 2010s. While Korea had some music that was analogous to City Pop -- Kim Hyun-chul comes to mind -- "Lady" is specifically aiming for what was happening in Japan during the '80s (even more explainable considering the genre's popularity within various Korean circles). In typical K-pop fashion, this is such a meticulously crafted pastiche that it takes on a new form from that of its source material. There's an excess of riches here, yes, but it comes from a digitally glitzy sheen and not from moments where you can revel in individual instruments; everything here solidifies into a monolithic disco mass. The guitar solo at the end, for example, is horrifically short -- most city pop would allow for such instrumentation to take center stage and unabashedly continue for as long as it felt necessary. So while "Lady" is certainly catchy, the mixing and structure stifle what it wants to accomplish. Which is to say, this isn't memorable in the way city pop is; it's memorable in the way K-pop is. [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Yubin

4 notes · View notes

finsterhund · 3 years ago

Text

today was an extremely busy day with some giant fucking bombshells

I got iced tea, I took Cazza for a trip to the petstore, she’s still in heat because she tried to flirt with an actual officially certified service dog which was very embarrassing, when we got home she pestered me about it until I distracted her with a treat.

I even got to have food tonight. It started off as a very positive day.

I managed to do some things on my list of tasks, I washed a stuffed animal who was very large and difficult to wash, and i did end up sleeping a lot because there wasn’t much else to do.

I guess it was a relax and recharge day. Which is hard to come by for me and I really needed it.

But now, in the evening so no doubt I won’t be able to sleep I found out that some shit really hit the fan.

I’m not one to believe in superstitions but all this hitting me on Friday the 13th is really triggering my unreality and making my psychosis flare up a bit. It’s surreal and kinda scary. I’m paranoid as fuck.

I found out some shitty people were a whole lot worse than I thought,

First, a while ago I called out some creep on deviantart for tracing the HoD cutscenes and other borderline csa shit. Well turns out his interest in anime teens didn’t just apply to anime and he deactivated his deviantart account after one of his at the time underage stalking victims came forward about his abuse. it went on for YEARS. He stole photos of her and another person without either of their consent and shared them around.

Then as I’m casually perusing twitter trying to calm down after how triggering it was to discover that, I notice someone mentioning that the trashy youtuber who’s fans have been known to stalk and harass me in the past used a slur.

So I look it up and he used the T slur, and in his apology he tries to go “disney made the original joke” (he did delete the video and apologize but still. real fucking tone deaf and I’m almost positive he used the R slur in the comment section of the now deleted original HoD video. So um.)

I feel genuinely sick in regards to the deviantart freak stalking someone, and it’s hard not to feel some level of vindication that a youtuber who’s fans made my online social life hell for years is finally facing some kind of backlash for his shitty cruel attempts at “humor” but I’m mostly just tired of having to share an online ecosystem with abusers freaks and assholes.

I have made no effort to go looking for these people. They’ve just been forcibly brought into my ecosystem and under my nose via algorithms or their own invasive behaviors.

Absolutely makes me want to KILL knowing that the guy was stalking these random innocent people since they were 14/15. And they only found out he was sharing their photos this year after discovering years worth of them used without their consent on deviantart as wank fodder. That would be utterly horrifying and my heart really goes out to the victims. I still can’t believe this. I’ve been a victim of IRL csa and also online grooming but the dedication of that level of stalking (he continued trying to stalk their modern social media accounts too on top of their old photos) is just utterly sickening.

His victims have gone to the authorities and I can only cross my fingers in the hopes that justice is served and the victims can find peace and this fucker has to answer for what he did and isn’t allowed to do anything like it again.

Shane, if you’re reading this, (and Wannabe for that matter too) you freaks are the lowest of the low and I hope you die in prison. You deserve to die in prison. And the world is better off when you are filled with worms and rotting.

I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight. Don’t feel particularly safe. Wish there was some level of protection I could give to the victims. Like be an in-person body guard or hack the mainframe and delete all those photos but in the end I’m unable to do anything except speak out I guess.

#text post #negative #csa mention -=-=-23-54-034825092374502378 #ask me to tag #long post

0 notes

daynamartinez22 · 4 years ago

Text

Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 324

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 324 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

We’re live. Oh, there we go. I see it now. So regardless, we’re live. Welcome to Hump Day Hangouts. Today’s the 27th of January 2021. And we’ve got some good stuff for you guys today. As usual, we got a few quick announcements and then we’re gonna jump into answering your questions. But real quick, just want to say hi, looks like we got most of the guys here today. Let’s see. I’m gonna start with her Nan today. How are you doing, man?

Dude, I’m good. I’m good.

I’m just melting down here. It’s really hot and humid, but it’s okay, man.

We’re supposed to have rain tomorrow. So gonna cool off. Happy to be here.

Nice. what’s the temperature there in Celsius?

And Celsius is like 36. I think so. 36. See, it’s pretty warm. Yeah.

Yeah, that’s 96 points, 97.

All right, that’s getting up. Yeah, that’s on like, maximum temperature scale. So I know you’re a hardware guy. But yeah, some rain on top of that. That sounds nice and humid. So you enjoy that. Yeah. Awesome. Marco. How are you doing today?

Um, I mean, what can I say? Groundhog Day. If you guys understand how it is that you can take $1 and change it into a million dollars. Give me one. Give me a hill. Yeah, let me see. Fuck. I hate those cheesy markers, man. Look, hard work. You gotta work. You gotta do the dude, you got to pay your dues. It’s very people who hit on that one idea with absolutely nothing. But sweat equity. Turn it into a billion-dollar idea. The rest of Us to get to anyone, whatever. I gotta work. I don’t just sit here and do nothing. I yeah, it’s beautiful. It’s a great place to work. I step outside. It’s sunny. It’s warm. It’s beautiful. Got the sun? Got him. Got this. When did my hair look, man? Come on, man. Very few things require no work as most people tell you to should is hard work. And it’s not easy. It’s not easy, but it’s not complicated. It can’t be simplified, which is what we’ve done for you. Alright. So if you want to know how, and you want to know why we’re in the middle of our charity webinars, Bradley killed it on Monday. With his ads for branding. And entity Monday, I’m gonna call it what it is entity manipulation. It was fantastic. A lot of great ideas, a lot of information that literally I’m telling you on Monday would have cost 1000s of dollars anywhere else. You got it for free. Next Monday. What’s the Dixon Jones, internet legend Dixon Jones is coming to show you how to do entities and content. And so this is going to be a recurring theme entities entities entities, brand new entities brand. I wonder why I wonder what’s working in SEO, what has been working, what’s working out what will be working. Anyway, I don’t want to take too much time. Thank you to those of you who donated if you haven’t, then I posted a how-to on the page. I know the information is there. Again, I don’t want to take too much time. And even if you did and you did not register, you won’t be able to access that page. Now. Because that page is gone. We moved it, you can still contact the email that I’ve set on there and you will get access. If you’re given the note no donation, you will get access to the replay. And if you haven’t donated, send proof of the other donation to the email and get access guys’ information. I’m telling you, you would end up paying I know barely one time paid nearly 20 K. And the information was nowhere near as good as the shit that we give away for the price of a donation. I can guarantee it. He told us what the information that he got not that it was useless. But the information that we’re giving away for a charitable donation. I’d be dead. There’s no comparison anywhere. Guaranteed.

Outstanding Marco, something you said at the beginning. I’m just gonna ask you and for those of you watching, I didn’t ask Marco this earlier or anything. But the something you said kind of tickled something in my head. I was wondering Have you read the book The Art of contrary thinking?

Of course.

Okay. I had never heard of it until a couple of weeks ago. And I just picked it up and started going through it. And anyway, I was like, You know what, I bet this is a book Marco would recommend. And just this is a total tangent, but would you recommend people to read it because I’m like 10 pages in and I’m like, I can tell this is gonna be a big one.

I mean, I recommend that you read period, right?

Yeah, read it.

And not just that it’s not just reading that one book but this other but Well, when everybody thinks, Oh, here we go, let me see if I get the quote, right. When everybody thinks the same when everybody thinks alike, everybody is likely to be wrong. Think about that. Think about that. All right. So the art of contrary thinking, Humphrey, was a Yo, yo,

yeah, Neil.

Yeah. Yeah, guys, read the book, read the book. Go read the art of war. Mandatory, mandatory. And then read the commentaries on the art of war. Don’t just read it. Try to figure it out while you’re like trying to read the Bible without the commentaries, right? Without going into the original text. But yeah, definitely, if you can, like a book a week, by all means, for those who can’t just listen to it, listen, listen to books, all the audiobooks are everywhere. But yeah, absolutely recommended.

Awesome. All right. The library tickled something else too. I just put the link down for anyone interested. We should probably we could update this year. We’ve got a recommended reading list which I don’t think the art of country thinking is on my add that on, but I just put it at semantic mastery comm slash books. So go check that out if you’re watching and interested in some of these we’re mentioning so. Okay, sorry, a little bit of a tangent there. But last but not least, Bradley, how are you doing today?

Doing great. Busy as all hell as usual, but doing well. Glad to be here.

Sounds good. All right. Well, I got a little thing to get through here. I wanted to let people know because we do have new people watching every week people coming in on YouTube are catching the replay. So first of all, thank you for watching. You’re in the right place.

Hold on a minute. Did we forget Chris, didn’t we?

Is Chris here. Chris is here. Oh, man. I’m sorry. Well,

I can go again as well. If you don’t like me here today. Chris snuck in the back door when Adam wasn’t looking.

That’s good. I feel bad because we got the little strip up at the top and zoom. So Chris, how are you doing? Man? My bad.

Yeah, doing well here. I didn’t know.

I was wondering because now I wish the most.

Sorry, what are you saying?

I don’t know. I’m shorting the markets, especially on the SEO niche. Not having anything else. Alright, well stay away from GameStop. So that’s already? Yeah. All right, well, let’s get into it. So like I was saying, if you’re here and you’re watching live, let us know how you’re doing. Even if you don’t have a comment, just say hello, get let us know where you’re at, or how you’re doing. And if you’re new to semantic mastery, you’re new to MGYB you’re new to heavy hitters club, the best place for you to start find out how to shield your sites don’t have to worry about algorithm updates again, and it’s a free training that’s available at the SEOshield.com. That’s the word, the SEOshield.com. And you’ll hear us talking about all the stuff that’s involved in that. So if you’re not familiar with words, like SEO shield, that’s a great place for you to get started. From there, definitely recommend picking up the Battle Plan. Alright, that’s step by step processes. So you can get SEO results. And it’s how we do things and the tools we use and the services we use. And you can get that at Battle Plan dot semantic mastery.com the next one after that we also get questions about right as consultants like myself, agency owners like Bradley, people who are, you know, wanting to get more clients who want to grow the revenue, they want to scale the team, they’re still you know, grow at still in growth mode. It’s hard to get that one out of the mouth. And you know, before they’re big enough, they’re thinking, How can I do this? How do I do these three really important things so Bradley and Hernan a little bit, they’ve put together this training last year, that is just amazing? It’s called 2xyouragency, 2xyouragency.com. Just head over there and you can find out more. And for those of you who are serious about growing your digital marketing business or the digital marketing side of your business, and you want to be part of the experienced community, then the mastermind is definitely for you. And that you can find out more at mastermind.semanticmastery.com. And now I mentioned MGYB if you’re not familiar with it, it’s mgyb.co. Alright, that’s done for you services, things like the SEO shield that I mentioned, syndication networks, link building press releases, and a ton more. I believe we’ve got an update coming soon. Right Marco we’ve got a kind of an overhaul on the system coming down the pipeline, right.

We have a complete overhaul of the system. But I mean, Bradley’s in there. So you can tell. He can tell me but I mean, we’re doing several things right. So it’s not just that syndication Academy. Right, that’s coming guys, that’d be an overhaul. And then, of course, we’re gonna have updates and is going to be a new person who just wants to be friendly more time, honestly, than what he could then want to get dedicated to it. It needs more time. So It can work the way that it should. Bradley couldn’t dedicate the time to it. So we just brought someone in. She learned the way. And she was here. I mean, you guys met her, you guys met SC, she’s the one that that’s redoing, syndication Academy, she was doing updates, she’s going to be going into a whole bunch of new profiles and websites that we can use to manipulate the entity. Remember, entity-based, worthless SEO. That’s what this is about the charity webinars are about that, how we’re winning today’s we’re manipulating the entity and showing Google what we want. And we’re getting Google to do what we want Google to do. That’s how we do the dope.

Outstanding. Well, like Marco was saying earlier, if you haven’t yet, you can still get access to the charity webinars highly recommend you do that that is on the page. If for some reason you’re watching this, you can’t find the link, you’re not sure what’s going on. But you know that you want to get in on that you can just send an email to support at semantic mastery comm we’ll get you sorted out and gets taken care of. So with that said, Guys, anything else before we dive into it?

All right, we’re good.

Right, grab the screen.

There it is. Alright,

so it looks like the first one is from mini min. Rob. Hey, guys, I’ve received my order from MGYB. But I don’t know how it works. Well, which order? Is he? Which order? Is he talking about? SEO SEO. But I don’t know.

Rob, if you’re here mini broad. I’m just gonna call it mini Rob. Sorry, man. This may be your actual name. But it makes me think of like a little tiny version of Rob. Yeah. If that’s the case, we need to know more information, right? We can’t tell you what’s going on. We don’t know if you ordered a press release or a link building order or keyword research. So we’re kind of stuck here. So if you let us know, we could probably help you. And then I would also say you probably want to talk to us first and come to Hump Day Hangouts. And if you’re like, maybe I should use this SEO shield thing or the press release thing. If you ask that first, we could definitely explain it. But since you’ve got it now, let us know exactly what you’re doing. And then that’s how we can help you I guess.

That’s good. Okay. All right. So yeah, we can try to answer a few. I’m sorry, I just got was looking at an email that just came in what’s the next question is what’s the best way before? Before you go to the next question, the SEO shield comm if you got an SEO shield, right, the seo.com is the place to go for the training. It’s free. And at the end of that, we even throw in a coupon for you to order whatever it is that you need.

How Do You Push The Link Juice To Power All PDFs In The Entire Amazon S3 Folders?

Beautiful. Okay, so the next one is what’s the best way to push link juice through entire Amazon s3 folders to power up all PDFs within? Also, is it possible, like Google Drive to embed folders to show all files inside the bucket? Thank you, um, the best way to power up an s3 folder? I’m not sure if you can power up a full folder. I’ve never tried that. Usually, I just extract the URLs from within the folder and then just hit those with backlinks. If there are URLs that I want to do that to Marco Do you know, can you make a public folder itself public? Like? I don’t know if the folder has its own URL or what?

Alright, guys, I have no idea. If the s3 folder itself, we know that the HTML documents that we place in their images or whatever it is that we placed in there can be made public. But I’ll tell you what, give me about I’m gonna say three months because we’re about to do some nasty stuff in s3, I was just talking about it with my team, or I shouldn’t call it my team partners. Just the SEO crew that I’m with where we’re going to go and just really look into s3 and how much power there actually is in there. So if you come back, I mean, if not just go in and do it yourself and see if it’ll if it can go public and then the best way to push power to that. The Darya Nuff said an embed gig or a link building gig or both from dedhia to that will push all the power you need. I’m not sure about the folder, but I can guarantee that in about three months. I’ll have all the answers you want about s3.

Is There A Way To Get More Branded GMBs In Different Locations To Boost The Footprint Of A Real Business With No Fixed Address?

Sweet. Next question. Is there a way to get more branded GMBs in different locations to boost the footprint of a real service business that doesn’t have a fixed address and works remotely? Yeah, I mean, if you can, I mean, there’s a couple of ways you can buy GMBs from places that will sell you verified GM bees we used to and MGYB. But I don’t think that’s available anymore. There are still some places that will do it. I even found somewhere that I placed an order but it was way back in November and it still hasn’t been delivered. So you know, I think it’s getting harder to do it. But there I know there are still some vendors out there that will sell verified GM B’s. I’m just not going to recommend any of them because again, the one that I just attempted to use in November, I still haven’t had one delivered yet. So I don’t recommend any of I don’t have any to recommend is what I’m saying but there are GMB verified. You know, you can purchase verified GMB, there are vendors out there that do sell them. The other way is the way that I’ve before people started selling them, I used to always just use Pio boxes, you can go to post offices, one thing you want to do is don’t you don’t want to get to GMBs too close to each other. Right. So if you’re going to do a service area business, which I understand doing that makes total sense, I would have them at least 15 or 20 miles apart. Depending on what your service area is, it could be even bigger, larger, you know further distance between locations. But what you can do is find a post office. And then you fill out a form, it’s free, but it’s to use the street address option. So in other words, like if you go you can do all this online, too, by the way, you can register a PO Box online. And they’ll give you they won’t issue you the box number and till you go to the post office like you have to physically go to the post office and show your IDs and sign the paperwork at the post office. But you can reserve it online and pay for it and everything else. But you do have to physically go to the post office to sign the paperwork and then they’ll assign you the box number at that point. So let’s just say it’s a box one on one. If if the post office is at 123, Main Street, whatever town right, then you can fill out an additional form, it’s free to do it doesn’t cost anything else. But you fill out an additional form to use the street address option. And then you would end up using the address for the GMB listing 123 Main Street number sign like the pound sign 101 right, and that that will work. You can’t add a p o box to GMB as the physical address. But you can do a street address with you know, basically a box number a suite number, but it’s just the pound sign and the post office is very particular about you only using the number sign the pound sign before the box number not sweet. Not box, none of that it’s just the number sign. And again, they’re very particular about that. But that’s the way that I had always done it prior to people selling GMB’s.

And it still works, you know. So that’s another alternative way to do it. And in fact, I actually still prefer that method after but over buying them except for the fact that you have to physically go to the post office that sucks. Because you know, especially if it’s far away, but if it’s within reason and you can drive to it, then I recommend going that route over purchasing GMB listings from vendors. And the reason I say that is because it’s still tied to a real physical address this way. And I feel like those are safer than using the spammed ones because of some of the spammed GMB listings that I have. They don’t have any physical location even referenced or tied to them, which I don’t even know how happens. But like there’s no physical address actually connected with it, and it causes problems with the proximity filter. So and what I’m saying is, even for service area business guys, you understand you have to clear the address like you’re not supposed to per Google’s Terms of Service, you’re not supposed to publish the street address for a service area business. Right. So in other words, if it’s a service area business where the customer or excuse me, the business serves the customer at the customer’s location, then you’re supposed to delete them or clear the physical location when you set your service areas then you’re supposed to clear the physical location from showing and when it does, it literally clears it from the GMB dashboard and it will not any longer show the physical address, the street address in the maps listing or anything. But what I’m saying is, some of the GMB is that I had purchased. They don’t have any street address associated with them at all and I don’t know how they even did it. But it causes issues to where it doesn’t show for like near me searches and stuff like that because there’s no physical location associated with it. And again, I don’t know how they do it because even when you register a new GMB, let’s say It’s a legit business and your service area business and it has a legit physical location where the office or you know the business owner lives or whatever, you have to add that address. When you set when you go to claim or create the GMB listing, you have to add the physical address and then wait for a postcard or a card to be delivered via us a mail to that location that has a pin number in it so that you can verify that that physical location that the business really resides at that physical location. So even when you clear the address to make sure that it’s not published, there is still a physical location associated with that GMB and you don’t see that on the GMB dashboard. But for example, I just recently started using local Viking to manage GMB posts and stuff because it integrates with some of my CRM and stuff. So anyway, I’m using that and when you import GMB listings into local Viking, it shows the street address, even if it’s an unpublished street address, and I’ve got a few listings in there that just no street address appears at all, there’s no physical location associated with it. And those are the ones that I’m having trouble getting to appear for proximity searches such as, like near me, keyword phrases, or search queries. And so again, I would recommend it, the spam listings, they can still work, but there are some drawbacks in them that I don’t like about them. Were the P o box way to get one with an actual physical address tends to work. Still, it still works. And I like that one better, except for the fact that you have to physically go to the post office. Does anybody want to comment on that?

Not me. Okay, moving on then.

But yeah, absolutely. That’s I mean, that’s a great way to do it for large, especially business with large service areas, if you can get multiple maps listings, that’s best. Another way to do it, by the way, just quickly, is you can go to Craigslist and post an ad for that I’ve done that I’ve been successful in the past where I’ve posted an ad and in the, you know, in the area that I want, and say, you know, tell them that I’ll pay him 50 bucks to receive a Google postcard. And, you know, tell me when they when they’ve received it and and and and, you know, call me or text me with the pin number inside the card. Most of the time what happens is you’ll find renters that do that instead of people that own homes because they don’t care if somebody registers a business to a rental property like the renters don’t care. The landlord might, but the renters don’t. So I found that I’ve done that in the past several times when it when they when I was trying to get a GMB in an area that I couldn’t that I just wasn’t you know, it wasn’t feasible to drive to and get a PO Box, then I will use Craigslist. So that’s another way to do it. Okay. Moving on.

Is It Possible To Get Wiki Links To An SEO Agency That Offers Other Services And Has A Blog On Non-Marketing Tech Resources?

Next question, given Wikipedia is a negative view of SEO, is it possible to get links from Wikipedia or wiki data to an SEO agency that also offers other services and has a blog with lots of non-marketing tech resources? Sure, but you can also purchase wiki links. Just like we were talking about spam, GMB listings you can buy. We sell [email protected], our store. And they work I mean, occasionally something will get edited out like, but I’ve actually had one recently that was edited out. And then I just submitted a support request, and I got it restored on another Wikipedia page. So you know, you can buy links, say is it possible? Yeah, cuz you can buy them. I don’t know how to do the edits myself, because I’m not a moderator for Wikipedia. But, you know, that’s one way you could do it is to hire, you know, a Wikipedia editor or moderator, I should say, those are generally really, really expensive. So the other way is just to find a service, like what we have in MGYB, where you can buy them there. I don’t know of any other way to get them to you, Marco.

I mean, there are other ways, but you got to pay for them, or you got to get yourself a Wikipedia page. And you have to be eligible, you have to be able to provide all the documentation that Wikipedia requires. That’s the best thing. The best thing is to get yourself a page on Wikipedia. And Dixon Jones is going to explain on Monday, that’s the most important Wikipedia link that you could possibly get that mentioned in Wikipedia. And then from that, I mean, the next best thing is getting a link on the top page and then getting a link on a page referring to another page as long as it’s relevant. Right. You got to maintain that relevance. But yeah, I mean, just go to MGYB to look for it. We offer it.

What Is A Good Way To Get Lots Of Footer Links Without Having Lots Of Clients?

Sweet Suraj is up he says what’s a good way to get lots of footer links without having lots of clients trying to rank in a competitive area for web design and all other competitors dominate with footer links someone’s exact text. So I’m assuming he means exact anchor text exact match anchor text was hacked footers. Yes. stuff I ever saw.

Yeah. Yeah, that’s funny. Do you say that? Because I, when I read this question earlier and asked what I was gonna suggest, was the only other way that I would know how to do it is the safe network. A lot of those links are hacked footer links, and that when I’m What I mean is like, they literally hack other people’s websites, put links in there for you. It’s so blackhat. But um, you know, it can work. I used to use a lot of safe links years ago when I was doing a lot more blackhat stuff. And I guess there’s really no hats. But when I was doing a lot of really spammy, like, you know, dark alley ship, I used a lot of safe links. I don’t do that anymore. But that’s one way to do it. I don’t recommend it. But that is one way to do it. Anyway, you got any suggestions, Margo?

For further length, Now, why? Alright, so here’s the deal. Um, and I’m gonna say this again. And we explained that I’m going to keep referring back to the webinars on Monday, we explain why we do things, the way that we do, why we create the entity, the way we the way that we do, I’m not gonna go through it here. But we become master mimics. We look at the big dogs. We do what the big dogs do, at the part level, at the algorithmic level, at the patent level, that’s how we do it. All right, if you want to learn how, and why make a donation. Go see our footer links the only way to compete or is there something more powerful than I am missing? Yeah, I mean, I, I don’t think I would go out use that strategy. I’m not I don’t think I know I would use that strategy. I would do other things. So the SEO shield? Yeah. Start there. And then there.

How Can You Run Ads For A Client If You Don’t Have Access To Their Website?

Fitz is up. He says, Hey, guys, hope everyone is well. How can you run ads for a client if you don’t have access to their website? Thanks. You don’t need access to some you can run ads to any URL. The problem is conversion tracking and remarketing and all that other stuff, you know, but you can run ads to any URL that you know. I mean, as far as I know, I don’t think if you have if, if you have a URL, you can run ads to it. The question is why, like if you don’t have access to their website, then you’re not going to be able to install, like the conversion link or code conversion tracking. You know, Google Tag Manager remarketing. You know the remarketing tag all of those things that you would need, but you don’t need them. But I would hate to piss money away on Google ads, or ads period if I couldn’t track conversions. And if I couldn’t build a remarketing list from anybody that visited the page or the site,

so I don’t know why you would want to do it without having access to the site. Go ahead.

Yeah, I’m just wondering if maybe it’s one of those where he’s saying he doesn’t have, edit access. But if somebody can, or if you can talk to the client be like, hey, you just need to take these two steps. You need to copy this code, you need to install it, tell them where to do it. Because Yeah, if you’re in that situation, where for whatever reason, you don’t have access, you need to maybe impress upon them the importance of, hey, you need to get this code on there. Otherwise, you’re gonna be losing money. You know, because you can’t retarget you’re not building retargeting lists, you won’t know about conversions.

Yeah, if you have, if you have, you know, if there’s a webmaster or somebody that is maintaining this site that you just don’t have access to yourself, then you can absolutely still do everything because what I would suggest you do at that point would be to set up Tag Manager. And then just contact, whoever’s managing the site. So the webmaster or the business owner, whoever’s managing the site, contact them and send them the container code for Tag Manager, one goes into the header, one goes into the footer, or right before the closing body tag, either one. And it’s just two snippets of code to get added to the site globally, right, so it’s site-wide code, and then you can add and subtract all the tags that you need inside of Tag Manager which you would have access to meaning you can add tags and triggers and all that stuff and then deploy it all through Tag Manager and will automatically update the website from a remote from tag managed from the Tag Manager dashboard. Once the container code is there, you can add or remove tags, remarketing tags, a conversion tracking all of that stuff. Jason, you can add structured data schema.org All kinds of stuff that you can use Tag Manager for. If you don’t have access to managing the site, the webmaster can install Tag Manager and you can use that.

Any other comments?

No, that’s fine. Okay,

Does It Make A Difference If You Already Added The Supporting Documents Prior To Getting The SEO Location Shield?

so the next one is from Landry. Now I get it, I couldn’t figure out how to pronounce your name. So I appreciate you spelling it out phonetically because Hooked on Phonics works for me. So thank you for that. So Lanre says, Hey, Bradley, I noticed you had problems pronouncing my name. It’s pronounced Landry as an rio. So I’ve got it this time. Now, my question is this, I bought my keyword research from you guys. I built my site, I added three categories with content, and five supporting articles per category, I now need to order my SEO location shield to establish my brand. Okay, I’m not sure that you want to order locations, you know, maybe you do, I don’t have the full context of your project. But let’s just assume that the SEO location showed us what you want to order? Does it make any difference? If I already added the supporting documents prior to getting the SEO location showed? I don’t quite understand the question. Does it matter that you’ve started to build out your site with categories and adding depth to the silos? No, it doesn’t matter at all. Because again, I don’t know that the location, I don’t have the full context, I don’t know what you’re doing. But just from this little bit of detail that I have. I don’t know that the location shield is really what you want and the SEO power shield should be for the brand. And then typically, for top-level silos, you want to do the are the expansion stack, right? Dry S Drive expansion, or drive stack expansion, excuse me? Not necessarily location shield. So if you go take a look at the SEO shield, and you take a look at the three different versions, what does it locate starter shield locations to power shield, right? Power shield is going to be for the brand, that’s what we recommend. But then our wireless expansions, which is a separate product in the store, it’s not on the SEO shield page, cry is drive stack expansion. Go in there. That’s what I would recommend that you buy an expansion for each top-level silo. Does that make sense? Does anybody want to comment on this Marco, do you?

Yeah, I mean, don’t look at it like that. Landry. Don’t look at it like that. You’re done with the website, you can continue working with the website. Yeah, you can have dummy content on the website, you shouldn’t. But you at least need that RSS feed. So yeah, you do need some supporting articles or posts. You have that already. Go in order and SEO shall not a location shield. Because you don’t want to pigeonhole yourself into a geographic location. All right, not if your branding, not if your branding, you can do you can take care of the locations through location-driven pages. On the inner part of the G site, in the beginning, you’re just trying to create I’m not gonna say the keyword, yet but it is its brand plus a keyword, relationships, how your brand relates to the keywords in whatever niche It is, it is that you’re in, especially the top-level keywords, we add it, we intersperse it, we go through all of the documents, everything gets filled with keywords, especially if you order our deep keyword research gig, which this is perfect for, it’s perfect for giving you all of the relevance necessary to really carry out a proper the proper content structure of your website will give you suggestions, you know your project better than we could ever hope to know it. So you have to follow what you know, with what our suggestions are. Once you have all that and once you get the SEO show delivered back, especially the G site that the following that as the ad ID and ordering an expansion won’t interfere with the ad ID. So what you see is okay, now I have a top-level category. So I’m going after gold. Now I want to do gold bars. Well, gold bars go on the inside. So let’s say you’re saying you’re in a city already, and you want the adjoining city. So gold bars add joining the city, however, it is that you choose to pursue that well, we build that for you we can build you an interface so that you don’t have to, and an intersect. So you’re expanding the power of your original branded stack, and G site. And the whole point of this is to keep expanding. So you’re adding depth and breadth to that T site and dry stack the same way that you’re doing it on your website as you find categories. And as you use supporting posts to boost that top-level category that you’re trying to rank eventually you should be pushing so much power. And I see this time and again, that even an empty folder is added. This is when true power will you push it to power and you’re building up that PageRank and ranking score. An empty folder will rank for the keyword that you’re assigning it. And it’s incredible when when when this thing happens, or you’ll pop in and like a new location, and a brand new GMB and you see all kinds of action in the GMB. And you’re wondering why? Well, it’s because you iframe it on the G site or you iframe that on your website, or it’s part of a really deep and wide drive second site. And that’s when the power really comes into play. That’s why I tell people, it’s hard work, you cannot expect to rank with one page for gold. It’s not gonna happen, you can’t ever hope to outrank Amazon with one page, and a couple of supporting posts. Not gonna happen. That’s, that’s a trillion-dollar company that you’re going after you can’t do it for a buck 50. All right, so all of this power and all of these things need to continue taking place, you need to do your press releases, you need to do the link building, you need to do the embeds plus link building. And you need to continue broadening your profile throughout the web, making that footprint bigger, wider, relating more profiles one to the other. This is what the big boys do. You see Apple everywhere you see Amazon, everywhere. So that’s what you have to do. And one of the ways that we do it is exactly the way I just described. Now that takes a lot of work. The way that I like to put this is it like people see it. And it’s really simple. I ordered the SEO shield, and then I just produce content. And magic happens. No, it doesn’t. I’ve been online for 18 years. This is 18 years in the making. Bradley has about a decade and I know her Nana’s around there. Chris has so many years and Adam, I think Well, I know. I’ve known him for six, seven years. So he has at least that long online. So you’re getting decade’s worth of thinking of strategizing of putting everything together into what you see as the SEO shoot. But that’s what it’s for. And that’s what you should order not the location shield, but the branded SEO power shield. Yeah.

Yeah, that’s why I just pulled up the pages on the store, just to demonstrate what Marco was talking about. The SEO power shield is what we recommend for the brand. For the main brand, right, and then from that, because it gives you the syndication network, the drive stack with the G site, and then the IDX page. So that’s for the main entity, right the brand itself, and then from there, you go from the store, go click into the Google RYS expansion stacks. And these are the expansion stacks of each top-level silo. Right? So each silo on the site. So top-level category, top-level keyword, you should have an RBS expansion stack. If you’re doing a local business and you’re you have location-based silos, however, you do that, I do it using the tag structure inside of WordPress, then I also order a separate expansion stack for each location, if that makes sense, but I don’t want to confuse you. As I said, if you’re doing it on just topical stuff, then you’d want a separate expansion stack for each one of your top-level silos. You don’t need additional ID pages and then additional g sites, which is what happens when you order location shield. So in fact, I would we would recommend against that.

Okay, so hopefully that clarifies that.

All right, moving on.

Does it make a difference in priority? No, no, it doesn’t, you can just as long as you have, all that you need is you need the web, the URLs, when that you’re going to push, you know uses your main target URL for your drive stack. And then for each one of your expansion stacks you’re going to get, you’re going to have a field that you have to submit your main target URL, it’s going to be one primary target URL per expansion. As long as those URLs are available, like on your site, that’s fine. It doesn’t matter whether there’s content there or anything, to begin with, you can order it with just the URL. The only thing that has to have content is the RSS feed for the SEO power shield order because the syndication network, if it’s an RSS driven syndication network as opposed to YouTube, then it needs the RSS feed has to have so the RSS Feed URL has to contain at least one item it can be the Hello World post for that matter, it doesn’t matter. As long as it has one item in the RSS feed, then they can set up the applets inside IFTTT but that’s it though the rest of the site doesn’t need to look at content on it. If it just has the URLs available in. That’s it. And for anybody watching this at this point watching the replay, enlarge the video so you can get the information about donating to the charity and accessing the webinar.

Do You Have Any Tips In Using Linktree Other Than Hammering It With Backlinks?

Okay, sweet. Let’s keep moving. Jim’s up. What’s up, Jim? He says, Hey, gang, I was curious if you guys have any tips or tricks to apply to link tree? That’s a good site. I just started playing with that a little bit more actually. Other than the usual hammer the shit out of it with backlinks. You can embed it. So yeah, it’s pretty much the same thing that we would always recommend hammer with backlinks. You can also embed link tree itself, the link tree page, which is just a collection of links, right. So that’s just you can also do embeds and backlinks to the embeds. Anything else?

Scorched earth Seo? hammer? I don’t know any other strategy. I don’t understand anything else other than if it can stand it, give it more. And if it takes that much, then try some more. Well, you know what it is man? Just go do the do.

How Would You Silo Structure A Website With Multiple Topics?

Alright, baby, what’s up, man? He says, Hey, guys, a better example for last weekend’s question how Google treat pages that are not related topically to the site, say you are a site about marketing. The silo is about software. Let’s say all the marketing software goes here. But what if we add non-marketing software pages to the silo to that silo-like employment software, or betting software, etc. So the new silo be opened to nonrelated marketing software? No. And in a case like that, BB, I would have subcategories. So I would use a complex silo structure for that type of site because the software would be the parent category, the top-level category, but then you would create subcategories for the different types of software marketing software is a subcategory. What were some of the other one’s employment software being another sub sub category, and then betting software or investing software? Right. forex software, like there’s a, you know, productivity software, like every one of those could be sub-categories. And then you would add supporting articles, which could be reviews of those types of different software in their appropriate subcategory. So in a situation like what you’re describing this time, in which you provided more context, this time than you usually do. So thank you for that, by the way, then then, yeah, I would use a complex silo structure for something like that. And I would add subcategories and appropriately place the articles and supporting articles and such within the correct cat subcategories. That is something that you could do.

Comments?

yeah, treated as a directory for marketing? And how would you build that directory then for marketing related categories and subcategories, and maybe some not so specific categories that do relate to marketing, but not in a direct manner, you could totally do that. Just be careful how far in the weeds you go, because you could end up somewhere totally not relevant to whatever it is that you’re doing. And then in that case, it’s not as if you’d be penalized or anything, it’s just that you’re not going to get any, well, you shouldn’t get any action, because the AI will know that there’s absolutely no relationship between that uncategorized or irrelevant category, and everything else that you’re doing, with the caveat that if you’re pushing enough power, it will rack it just takes monster power to do it.

Yeah. Yeah, and, and actually, you know, that’s, I, I prefer using simple silos as much as possible. But in the situation that you’re describing here, that’s perfect for a complex silo. And you can push a shit ton of power with the complex silo guys if you know how to how to set up your internal linking correctly. Complex silos can push a ton of power to the top-level keyword. So again, you know, you got to map that out before ever starting a complex silo site, spend some time mapping it out, like not just the immediate need, but your future needs as well, because that’s part of the problem with a complex silo structure is it’s real easy to get started and think that you have an idea of what you want your silo structure to look like when you’re starting off and you have, you know, a finite or a limited amount of content and ideas. But as the project grows, you’re probably going to figure like, Oh shit, I should have figured it. I should have structured the site in this way instead. And that’s part of the problem with complex silo structures is their complex just like the name? Just like, that’s why it’s in the name, excuse me. But if you do it correctly, if you map it out, right, then you can I mean, it’s just amazing. And how much power you can push with those. But again, it’s like I remember, that’s part of the reason I like to do those anymore at all is that I would spend literally hours upon hours a day to, you know, a day or two on just mapping out the site before starting the build. And even then even after doing all of that mapping work and trying to decide on how I was going to structure the site, a lot of the times, at some point in the future, I would end up kicking myself for structuring it that way, because I should have done something else, you know what I mean? So I prefer not to do that if needed. But if so, I mean, if that’s the route, that you’re going to go spend some time on the front end, you’ll, you’ll be glad that you did. And yeah, you can push a lot of power that way, for sure.

Well, that’s if you’re building a directory, this complexity in building a directory to start with. So try to keep it simple. And don’t spend hours trying to map out the site, just get to work on it, and try to work it out conceptually, as you go, you’re still gonna run into problems and having to 301 and having to redo your URL structure. But that’s a lot better, man.

Do Semantic Mastery’s Methods Only Work On Google Search Engines?

So the next question is, do your methods work only on Google search engines and YouTube? Or should they should it also work on search engines like Facebook or Pinterest search, etc. I mean, we optimize for Google? Because you know, that’s what 70 or 80% of all search traffic. I can’t speak for Facebook or Pinterest, those algorithms are totally different. But oftentimes, when we optimize for Google, then we end up ranking in Bing and Yahoo because many and Yahoo are one and the same anymore. But it’s only I think, they’ve got a little bit more market share than they used to, but it’s somewhere around 30%, I think. But I don’t optimize for Bing, or, I mean, I just optimize for Google. Because that’s, you know, that’s where the bulk of all traffic comes from. And usually, we end up ranking in Yahoo, and Bing also, comments on that?

Yeah, I mean, we want Google search. That’s what we’re after. In some places in some countries some areas, over 90% of the search market, is in Google. So if you have something that’s search-based, which is totally local business, or whatever, then it just stands to reason that you’re going to focus on Google. Now, if you’re going to go and work on the Pinterest algorithm that you have to learn the Pinterest algorithm. And some of the methods that we teach might not work in Pinterest, but I’m not gonna get into how Pinterest works here works differently. The same thing with Facebook, the Facebook algorithm works differently. It just does. They’re similar. So as the Bing algorithm, they’re all based on the same thing, right, trying to see how they rank for a certain query. At the end of the day, that’s what you’re trying to do. But you have to learn the requirements. So you mentioned Pinterest, and, and Facebook, you’d have to try those people want Amazon, we have to go in and figure that one out. Then Bing, Yahoo. Why when we can get 80 to 90%. In Google, and then the other ones, we can just run ads and get results. Yep,

I agree.

Have You Ever Ranked Something Using Citations Only?

All right. Ah, next question. Have you ever ranked something with citations only and without links? Let’s, let’s say you have a non-local site, say e-commerce does brand citations without backlinks. Will that work? First of all, I don’t know because all I do is local stuff. I’ve ranked local stuff with just citations like a local business directory or business directory citations like structured citations. Sometimes they’ll contain links, oftentimes, they’ll contain links. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried to rank any local business project with just citations. It’s probably possible still, but citations are just a part of an overall picture. Now that’s talking about, like, structured citations like business directory listings for local type business sites. I think what you’re talking about is like co-citation, right? where somebody is talking or a citation, I guess, in a broader sense, can be just a brand mention, right?

I’ve never tried that. I don’t know why you would mean, I’ve never tried it. So I can’t answer that. Can you know, because the citation is a backlink? So I don’t get it. I don’t get the question to start with. And let’s, let’s see, let’s say you have a non-local site. That’s e-commerce does do brand citations without backlinks work, or will they work? I have no clue because that’s not how we do. We actually use citations as part of the entity. It’s all part of entity-based. worry less SEO, especially local, like the broader you go The less necessary they can put your branded citations if you can get them in the big ones in the data aggregators, as a matter of fact, work really well because they’re links. They’re places where Google goes to see the data to pull data, but it. Alright, so this question I’m not gonna pick on you, I’m just saying is missing the point of the ranking score and PageRank algorithm, and of every other algorithm, because Google has to go through a link somewhere to get to the server, wherever this branded or number, enter the citation or wherever this other thing is, without that link, there’s absolutely no way that Google can go from one server to the other, it’s not magic, Google cannot teleport, it can’t jump into another server, right? It’s a, it’s HTTP or HTTPS. That’s the protocol. As well, there has to be something that connects them that connect, now you what you’re talking about. And, again, I’m gonna go back to our webinar Monday, it was killer, you have two nodes, is what you’re talking about. One is your brand, whatever. And you have another note somewhere that mentioned your brand, Google has to get that get to that, each of those and relate them some way. And the way it does that is through links. So the more links that are connected to your e-commerce site, and to wherever that brand citation is, right, the more power it will have, because that Google can start creating the relationship for the distance graph algorithm with again, I’m not going to get into any of that. What I’m just saying is, you need to start conceiving in this another way, because the things that you’re asking are a little bit conceptually off on this. I’m reading this incorrectly, in which case I’d like you to explain what it is that you mean, you did a really good job on the other one of explaining what it was. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. So I said I was more contents context in that last question than what we’re used to from BB. So. Okay, so the next question is from is not really a question, as Jim says, He says, but rather a wiki experience, I have a site that has six wikilinks pointing to it from different or two different articles. I didn’t pay for them, they were added in a natural manner. So organic links. That’s awesome.

Those quotes, I’d like to know what those natural means is it’s in quotes. Well, that’s true. That’s true. But I think he means that it’s just he’s got good content, and somebody, you know, linked to it naturally from an article. That’s how I interpreted but you’re right, since it’s in quotes, it might be. Anyway, those links are very powerful. And I highly recommend trying to get one through whatever means necessary pro tip have the best, most thorough, most documented article on a subject and then cross your fingers. You know, that’s a great point, Jim, because here’s the thing. You can purchase wiki links, right? Like, we just talked about that from, or links from Wikipedia or links, you can get a link on Wikipedia by buying it from our service. But don’t just link to like something that, you know, if I recommend that you are linking to something that has some well-written content, not just like, you know, a spammy page or something like that on the site. I mean, you can try to get away with that. But the problem with that is it it’s likely going to get moderated out at some time. Like even if your link gets placed. At some point, somebody’s probably going to discover that it’s linking to something if it’s not linking to something that is resourceful, right? That is a resource that is relevant to the page that the Wikipedia that Wikipedia is linking from, then it’s going to end up being moderated out at some point, it’s almost guaranteed it’s just a matter of time. So I recommend that if you are going to buy Wikipedia links that you do link to a piece of content on the site that you’re linking to that is relevant, and has some useful information on there. Right. So that it’s less likely to get moderated out at some later date by some other Wikipedia moderator. Okay.

Comments, good?

No, no, I mean, fantastic if you can get them and I saw that later on. He said, organic. That’s fantastic. You can get organic links if you can become the source or a source for that Wikipedia page. That’s fantastic. Because now that now you have a relationship to that seed site. I’m going to talk seed sites and seed sets are I don’t want to confuse all y'all up. But that’s what happened. You related to trust to trusted and authoritative sources. Thereby you become a trusted and authoritative source. Which is why it’s working so well.

Adam, you on, you turn your camera on. So I’m assuming you got something to say?

Unknown Speaker 55:08 No, it was let’s say I’m going to reach out to Jim, I want to ask him a question because he’s had some interesting comments over the last couple of weeks. So talking about AI stuff. And then now with organic Wikipedia links, so Jim, I’m gonna track you down, are you if you can find me, so shoot me a message. But yeah, I just actually had a note on the kind of the last, or sorry, the last question of the day here.

Thoughts On The AWS Email About Allowing Public Access

Okay, cool. So, Jay says Amazon AWS sent out an email warning about allowing public access to an s3 bucket. Yeah, I’ve gotten dozens of those emails. Yeah, the wording was such that it sounds like they’re removing public access. And if you are in disagreement with that, I don’t think that’s the case. That’s not the way I read it. Yeah. And

I just pulled it up to double-check just did a quick read through. And they don’t say that they just say that. You should have some buckets configured that way, that may not be what you intended. So we suggest you fix it. And then, you know, talk to us if you have a question, but it doesn’t say that we’re gonna change it or anything like that.

Yeah. Thank you, Adam. Because that’s when I read his question. Or when I read this question, I thought about that. I was like, you know, I better go back and reread, because I mean, I’ve gotten dozens and dozens of those emails. And I’ve read through them a couple of times. And the way that I interpreted it was what Adam just said was, like, it’s telling you like, Hey, you probably didn’t mean for the bucket to have public access. But if you did, it’s not recommended. But I didn’t see anywhere where it said they were going to revert them to protect. A lot of problems.

Yeah, the only thing is one line. If you have a business need to maintain some level of public access, please see an overview of managing access, and they give references for more in-depth instructions on managing just to make sure you’ve done the correct level of access. Yeah.

Yeah, when I set up my buckets, I set them up to where objects can be public. But the folder itself, or the bucket itself isn’t entirely public, it just allows for individual items to be made public. That’s the way that I set up all my buckets so that I can pick and choose whether I want them to be public at the time that I upload the files. So hopefully, that makes sense. we’re about out of time, Jim says sorry, natural and organic. Yeah, we saw that. Thank you. Jim, by the way, reached out to Adam BB says I mean, so this is a guest clarification for his previous question. He says, I mean, you have an e-commerce site for dog food named SM doggy will a mentioned citation that way mentioned or a citation of that, and other sites will promote the site without a backlink? Again, I don’t know. I mean, for local businesses, having the name, address, and phone number published online, even without a backlink count as a citation, which is like a vote of confidence, right? It’s just because what is it doing? It’s just validating entity information. Does that make sense? That’s why it’s so important to have a name, address and phone number always published exactly the same. Because even having punctuation different or using the ampersand sign instead of A and D, or something like that, right are sometimes having IMC or LLC at the end. And other times not all of them. If you have variations of the name, address, and phone number published even with no backlink, then that can start to ambiguous. The data, right and that’s why local businesses have published mention of the name, address, and phone number, even without a backlink does count as a citation and can help to rank now, can it be can you purely rank on that? I don’t know. I’ve never tried it. But when you’re talking about that type of citation for a nonlocal site like an e-commerce site? I have zero experience with any of that whatsoever. I can’t imagine that it would but I can’t say whether it does or not. Because I’ve never done anything like that. comments.

It creates co-occurrence. It is a no co-citation or a citation. If it’s the full local citation, right? Name, Address phone number, the NA p other than that I don’t know I’d like depends on the competition. If there’s no competition, I see where it just mentioned, of your site on powerful sites would make a difference. But if like, like most places, that the competition is fierce, then no, you’re not going to get away with something like that.

Yeah, and I think it’s kind of interesting to backing this up a level away from purely the SEO benefit and saying, Well, if your name let’s say the SM dog food brand is mentioned on Huffington Post, like yeah, you know what, I bet Our website is gonna see some increased traffic and it’s not a direct link, right. It’s just by getting out there and building the brand. You know, that’s kind of what’s happening there as to how I see it without getting into the technical side.

Yeah. And you know, actually, just to follow up, Adam, that’s a really good point. And I know this to be true, because when I started my land investment, my land flipping business, I experienced it firsthand. And that is if you can get a name published online, right, and somebody but it’s not a backlink, but somebody reads the name and they’re curious, they’ll go Google that. And then it pulls up the brand. And then they click through that’s a navigational or brand search query, that then a click through. So that’s a huge SEO signal, when somebody reads a name, brand name somewhere and then goes in Google searches and then clicks through that’s a fantastic SEO signal. And I experienced that with alpha land Realty, my business, my real estate business because when I first started, I was just running ads, I didn’t do any SEO at all, nothing, I just have a single and it’s still to this day, just have a single landing page on click funnels. For you know, for that business, basically. And all I started I was sending I was running Google ads to that but no SEO and then I started sending a direct mail out to property owners with my brand name Alfa land realty on it. And what happened was I started seeing alpha land realty ranked number one for even like, my keywords like sell land fast Virginia and things like that. And I couldn’t figure out why because I hadn’t done any SEO work whatsoever. And then I started digging into it. And I realized that people were doing navigational search queries because they would get letters from me direct mail letters from me that would state you know, hey, alpha land realty wants to buy your property, if you’re interested, go here, blah, blah, blah. And they would go to Google and search alpha land Realty and then click through and because of that, I started to rank in a matter of like three weeks with zero SEO work. And it was because of those brand searches, which is why we talked about engagement signals are absolutely critical, are super powerful. You want to comment on that, guys before we wrap it up?

Yeah, I think that’s good.

Okay, thanks, everybody for being here. We’ll see you guys next week. See ya.

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 324 published first on your-t1-blog-url

0 notes

localwebmgmt · 4 years ago

Text

Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 324

youtube

Click on the video above to watch Episode 324 of the Semantic Mastery Hump Day Hangouts.

Full timestamps with topics and times can be found at the link above.

The latest upcoming free SEO Q&A Hump Day Hangout can be found at http://semanticmastery.com/humpday.

Announcement

Dude, I’m good. I’m good.

I’m just melting down here. It’s really hot and humid, but it’s okay, man.

We’re supposed to have rain tomorrow. So gonna cool off. Happy to be here.

Nice. what’s the temperature there in Celsius?

And Celsius is like 36. I think so. 36. See, it’s pretty warm. Yeah.

Yeah, that’s 96 points, 97.

Of course.

I mean, I recommend that you read period, right?

Yeah, read it.

yeah, Neil.

Doing great. Busy as all hell as usual, but doing well. Glad to be here.

Hold on a minute. Did we forget Chris, didn’t we?

Is Chris here. Chris is here. Oh, man. I’m sorry. Well,

I can go again as well. If you don’t like me here today. Chris snuck in the back door when Adam wasn’t looking.

That’s good. I feel bad because we got the little strip up at the top and zoom. So Chris, how are you doing? Man? My bad.

Yeah, doing well here. I didn’t know.

I was wondering because now I wish the most.

Sorry, what are you saying?

All right, we’re good.

Right, grab the screen.

There it is. Alright,

How Do You Push The Link Juice To Power All PDFs In The Entire Amazon S3 Folders?

Is There A Way To Get More Branded GMBs In Different Locations To Boost The Footprint Of A Real Business With No Fixed Address?

Not me. Okay, moving on then.

Is It Possible To Get Wiki Links To An SEO Agency That Offers Other Services And Has A Blog On Non-Marketing Tech Resources?

What Is A Good Way To Get Lots Of Footer Links Without Having Lots Of Clients?

How Can You Run Ads For A Client If You Don’t Have Access To Their Website?

so I don’t know why you would want to do it without having access to the site. Go ahead.

Any other comments?

No, that’s fine. Okay,

Does It Make A Difference If You Already Added The Supporting Documents Prior To Getting The SEO Location Shield?

Okay, so hopefully that clarifies that.

All right, moving on.

Do You Have Any Tips In Using Linktree Other Than Hammering It With Backlinks?

How Would You Silo Structure A Website With Multiple Topics?

Comments?

Do Semantic Mastery’s Methods Only Work On Google Search Engines?

I agree.

Have You Ever Ranked Something Using Citations Only?

Comments, good?

Adam, you on, you turn your camera on. So I’m assuming you got something to say?

Thoughts On The AWS Email About Allowing Public Access

Yeah, I think that’s good.

Okay, thanks, everybody for being here. We’ll see you guys next week. See ya.

Source: Semantic Mastery Weekly SEO Q&A – Hump Day Hangouts – Episode 324 published first on your-t1-blog-url

0 notes