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unrequitedtrash · 6 years ago

Note

For TC asks, what if I asked you to do ... All of them 😜

I would thank you profusely and apologise for such a late response!long post, but worth the read :p

1. do you know of any previous jobs they had?

I have no idea whatsoever

2. are they right-handed or left-handed?

Right-handed and has one of the worst cutest handwriting ever, so many people are unable to read it - I am able to decipher his handwriting aha

3. describe their voice.

deep, I guess. gosh I am awful at describing anyone’s voice. personally, I think his voice has a soothing tone to it, or it can be quite harsh and sharp

4. if you could give them anything in the world, what would you get them?

happiness in all forms - I just really want him to be happy

5. if they were a drink, what would they be?

a bittersweet alcohol drink? something like Cinquecento - represents how he seems frigid on the outside, but is actually really kind

6. what is something you regret doing around them?

oh wow, so much… I think the ‘milk bottle’ incident will be no. 1 - I still cringe about it to this day

7. are they optimistic or pessimistic?

pessimistic bastard, he is

8. in general, how do they treat others?

depends on who they are, he can be reserved and strict when dealing with students, but with students he is more familiar with and teachers he is friends with, he is a lot more relaxed and open

9. what made you fall for them?

his intelligence, humour, wit, sarcasm, sardonic personality and how awkward he is

10. what do they do in their free time?

he reads, watches television, keeps up with politics and I heard that he owns a Steam account so I do wonder what kind of video games he is playing…

11. if they were a candy, what would they be?

strawberry delight from quality street, only because when I offered some to him, he asked for strawberry delights

12. describe the way they walk / their movements.

he has an ever so slightly hunched back, and is extremely tall - he walks with confidence, I think

13. is there anything you didn’t like about them at first that you love about them now?

I don’t think so… things about him that irked me still do

14. describe what you imagine they do as soon as they get home.

that’s a difficult question, since I am really unsure if he single or not (I think hope he is). I imagine he would take his blazer and tie off, unbutton his shirt a bit, make himself a drink (either making himself a cup of tea/coffee, or cracking open some alcohol), and either watch some television or do some work. I really have no idea

15. if they were furniture, what type of furniture would they be?

a chest - does not look like much on the outside, but on the inside, it is where all the special and unique things are

16. what’s their go-to hairstyle?

poor man, he is mocked amongst my friends for his receding hairline. but he, I think, uses hair gel to spike up his hair into a triangular shape

17. if they were a clothing item, what would they be?

any part of a formal suit - either a blazer or tie

18. top three favorite moments with them?

(not in any order) 1. taking selfies with him 2. every time he starts a conversation with me 3. calling him ‘amazingly beautiful’

19. top three worst moments?

(again, not in any order) 1. the ‘milk bottle’ incident and that is all I can think of

20. what do you admire most about them?

how insanely intelligent he is

21. what three words best describe their personality?

sardonic, intellectual, humorous, caring (I know there is four, but I could list more and three is so small)

22. do they have an accent?

yea, the typical regional accent I think everyone at my school has - though, I don’t think it is very strong

23. what’s their ethnicity?

probably just British

24. are they religious?

nope, I remember him saying he read a book that completely changed his opinion on religion, I believe

25. how’s their posture?

he has a bit of a hunched back

26. what’s their hair color?

dark blonde…?

27. eye color?

the prettiest pair of blue eyes I have ever seen

28. skin tone?

pale…?

29. do they have any tattoos? if they don’t, what do you think they would have for a tattoo if they got one?

he does not have any, to my knowledge. I don’t think he is the kind of person to have a tattoo, to be honest

30. are they older or younger than your parents?

younger

31. if they were a holiday, which one would they be?

autumn

32. do you know their middle name?

I do indeed, though I will not say for obvious reasons.

33. what did you first notice about them?

he really suits suits, like damn

34. what’s their relationship status?

I, and many others, believe he is single

35. do they have glasses?

he does, but long-distance ones so he wears them when driving

36. do they have any moles or noticeable birthmarks?

not any that I can see

37. any distinguishing facial features?

nope, just cute

38. what kind of clothes do they wear?

s u i t s

39. what colors so they wear most often?

well, his suits are almost always a black blazer, black trousers and different coloured shirt - salmon pink, blue, white

40. what year were they born?

I have no absolutely no idea

41. what superpower would they have?

other than his intelligence, I feel like he would suit having a mind reading superpower

42. what’s one fact about them that makes you smile every time you remember it?

not really a fact about him, but anytime I think of him, I just smile - whether it be a happy or sad smile, I just do

43. have they ever given you a gift?

nope

44. have they ever hugged you?

I wish!

45. what year will you graduate and are you prepared to say “goodbye”- or at least, “see you later”?

I have graduated already, and I think the Sixth Form Prom was the last time I would see him - I don’t want to believe it because I have liked him for so long. I did shout and wave ‘bye’ to him at Prom, but I want to see him again, just one last time

46. do you have any pictures of you with them? if so, how many?

I do indeed, I’m not sure of the number but at least five of them are selfies

47. do you know what college/university they went to?

not entirely sure, but a friend of mine thinks she knows where he went as he may have went to the same university as my friend’s aunt

48. are you ashamed or embarrassed that you have a tc?

sometimes I am, and sometimes I am not - I think my friends are more ashamed and embarrassed of and by me having a TC, to be honest

49. what’s one of their favorite book series?

he liked the Jeeves Series by P.G. Wodehouse, I believe - not sure if it is his favourite

50. what’s one of their favorite tv shoes?

no idea, I know what he watches/has watched

51. what do you think they were like when they were your age?

quiet, shy and awkward - possibly the ‘edgy kid’ lmao

52. would you have been friends with them in high school?

I can certainly see him as part of my friendship group in school - we are all just as awkward as each other

53. do they have dimples?

he doesn’t seem to have any from what I can see from the pictures I have with him

54. do you ever draw pictures of your tc?

nope aha

55. what goes through your mind when you see them unexpectedly?

‘oh my gosh, do I look okay? why he is looking hella fine like always? quick, think of something to say. damn, he just nodded at me. quick nod and smile back…’ and other things

56. if they were a fruit, what fruit would they be?

a dragonfruit!

57. what’s their handwriting like?

just about readable :p

58. what age did you think they were when you first met? what age are they really?

I am awful with guessing people’s ages, I thought he was 34 when we first met, apparently he is 34?! no idea how old he is

59. are they introverted or extroverted?

bit of a mixture of both? more introverted, though

60. when you graduate, do you plan on visiting them?

I am hoping I have moved on from him after I have graduated; but, if I am in the area, may go and say a quick hello to him

61. if you already graduated, have you seen them since?

I have graduated, and saw him at prom - best night ever.

62. do they live anywhere remotely near you?

he lives around 30 minutes away, by car

63. what three colors always remind you of them?

black, salmon pink and white

64. have you ever gotten them a birthday gift?

no, I have no idea when his birthday is

65. describe their laugh.

very deep, hearty laugh - you know when he finds something truly funny by just his laugh

66. what do you do when you’re on vacation and can’t see them?

I like to think my TC is not always on my mind - though, every now and then, there will be something that I see that reminds me of him and I just smile sadly to myself and carry on with my holiday

67. do you think they know you like them?

I would not be surprised if he knew - he already recognises that I ‘act weird around him’

68. are you good at the subject they teach?

yes, very much so

69. describe them as a person.

I feel like I have answered this so many times… he is insanely smart and intelligent, funny, witty, sarcastic, sardonic, awkward and adorable

70. what do you think they do in the summer?

meet up with friends and relatives, read a few books - who knows? aha

71. what always reminds you of them?

any time anyone says ‘bastard’, seeing suits in clothing stores

72. what would you love to see them wear?

honestly I love a man in a suit, and he has always wears a suits. I have seen him in casual clothing as well

73. if they were a musical instrument, what instrument would they be?

I automatically think of a guitar when I think of musical instruments and him - no idea why though

74. what day of the week would they be?

Sunday - it is a good day because it is a rest day, but Monday is the next day and you don’t want Sunday to end

75. what do other students think about your tc?

some think he is creepy, some think he is weird, some think he is strict, and others think he is awkward but all think he is smart and a good teacher overall

76. when’s the last time you saw them?

at my sixth form prom~

77. when will you see them again?

hopefully soon lmao…

78. what’s something they said to you that you’ll never forget?

honestly I remember everything he has said to me

79. what are they like when they’re angry?

he is quiet and does not say much, you can tell from his monotonous voice that he is angry

80. have you ever drawn a picture of them and gave it to them?

gosh, no

81. what’s your age gap and how does it make you feel?

possibly 16 years? I have no issue with it, or think it weird - I think my crush on my TC has made me see age gap relationships in a completely different light

82. generally, what mood are they in?

neutral…?

83. would you say you two are similar in many ways or drastically different?

both awkward - he is smart, I am not

84. how long did it take you to realize your feelings?

maybe a few months, really wanted to deny having a TC but hey, I am a strange person

85. have you written any poems about them? would you ever show them any?

my whole blog consists of poems (some by me) about him

86. are you talkative around them?

heck no

87. are they talkative around you?

not really, but when he is, it does surprise me

88. what’s one thing you wish was different about them?

I was thinking about him not being a teacher, but then, how would I meet him if he was not my teacher. but then again, it would be more socially acceptable if I did try to truly pursue him

89. what’s your favorite thing about them personality wise?

answered

90. what’s your favorite physical thing about them?

his height and smirk

91. do they have any talents?

I am not aware of any…

92. do they have any siblings?

I believe he does, not sure if they are older, or younger or a brother or sister

93. any pets?

older students said he had a dog, not sure if he still does…

94. any children?

really doubt it

95. if they weren’t a teacher, what could you see them as?

I was going to say a professor, but that is the same thing. he really suits being a teacher. but I could totally see him within the legal circle…

96. what do you think their favorite holiday might be?

I would say reading, but other than that, knowing he has a Steam account, possibly playing video games aha

97. do you know anything about their childhood?

I remember a few things he told our class about his childhood

98. do they have any nicknames for you?

absolutely not - he is aware of my nickname, but does not call me with that nickname (thank goodness)

99. do you have any nicknames for them?

lanky bastard, but I don’t say it to his face, of course.

100. do you think you’re in love with them?

I know that I am not in love with my TC, I think I just really really like him. this is the first time I have ever felt such intense and strong romantic feelings for someone, I could regard him as my ‘first love’, but who knows what the future holds.

wow, after answering all of these, I can conclude I do not know a lot about my TC, yet I have liked him for the longest time - how strange and stupid I am.thank you again anon for letting me answer all these questions about lanky bastard, it is very much appreciated - had a lot of fun with it.thank you to those who have read all the way through it and have reached here!

#tc ask #tc questions #answered #anon

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michaelandy101-blog · 4 years ago

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How to Run an Instagram Contest: A 10-Step Guide

New Post has been published on https://tiptopreview.com/how-to-run-an-instagram-contest-a-10-step-guide/

How to Run an Instagram Contest: A 10-Step Guide

With more than 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram has established itself as an obvious platform for brands looking to expand their reach and engage with their audience.

Figuring out how to launch a successful Instagram contest, however, is much less obvious. Sure, it sounds like an effective strategy for stirring up conversation — it capitalizes on user generated content (UGC) and typically requires very little commitment for participants. But where do you start? And how can you be sure that you’re covering all the bases?

How to Run an Instagram Contest: A 10-Step Guide

To help give you some direction, we put together a detailed list of steps to run through when planning an engaging Instagram contest. From setting goals to monitoring submissions, we’ve covered all of the basics below — and we’ve included some inspirational examples along the way. Check it out …

Disclaimer: This blog post includes some information on legal issues surrounding internet marketing, but legal information is not the same as legal advice — applying the law to a specific circumstance. We’ve conducted research to better ensure that our information is accurate and useful, but we insist that you talk to a lawyer if you want professional assurance that our information, and your interpretation of it, is accurate. In a nutshell, you may not rely on this information as legal advice, nor as a recommendation or endorsement of any particular legal understanding, and you should instead see this post’s info as for entertainment purposes only.

1. Plan objectives and goals.

Before you dive into an Instagram marketing contest, it’s important to plan it out first. The key to running a successful contest is to have a purpose — one that aligns with the interests and behaviors of your target audience.

Whether you’re looking to grow your brand presence on Instagram or build out your list of followers, it’s important that you set a specific goal so that you’re not left wondering whether or not you were successful in the end.

To help narrow your focus, think about the audience you’re trying to reach: What kinds of posts do they like seeing on your account? What kinds of posts do they enjoy posting on their own feeds? How do they behave on the platform? If you’re looking to drum up a lot of engagement, you should aim to center your goals and purpose around content that your audience actually wants to post and engage with.

Don’t forget to establish a time frame and budget for your contest, as determining these logistical details upfront will help you design a more effective contest.

2. Create an entry method.

Although the most effective and engaging Instagram contests are those that actually prompt your audience to post their own photos, there are number of different ways brands can create contests on Instagram. Because of this, it’s important to establish and emphasize what it takes for your audience to actually enter the contest.

Here are some ideas for how your audience might enter your contest:

Have your audience post a photo or a video to Instagram with a specific hashtag and a specific theme.

Have your audience solely follow you or do so in addition to creating a post.

Have your audience tag your brand in their post.

Have your audience Like or comment on one of your posts.

(For more ideas, click here.)

Make sure you establish what the guidelines are for entering the contest, and make that clear on your promotional materials. Maybe your contest is centered around a hashtag that doesn’t include your brand name. If you still want your brand to be tagged to gain recognition, you have to make that clear in your rules.

3. Find the perfect hashtag.

A good hashtag is a key to any engaging Instagram contest. Without it, there’s no link between the contest and the content being generated. In other words, hashtags help create brand and/or contest recognition by serving as a mechanism for sharing and driving participation.

Trouble is, creating the perfect hashtag can be tricky. If your contest is going to have a time frame (and it should), you want to create a hashtag that you’re not going to want to use over and over again. Not to mention, there are tons of hashtags being created each day, making it difficult to land on something unique and catchy.

To help you come up with the best fit, consider these contest hashtag guidelines:

Short: Create a hashtag that sticks in people’s minds. The more readable and identifiable your hashtag is, the better it is for your contest.

Relevant: Make sure you’re creating a hashtag that is very clearly related back to your brand name, product, or services. If you settle on a generic, crowded hashtag such as #ThrowbackThursday, it’s likely that you’ll have a hard time figuring out who your participants actually are.

Memorable: Users are likely to see promotions for your contest prior to actually posting the content. This means your hashtag needs to be memorable enough for users to think about it once and remember to act sometime later. Try to make your hashtag catchy, easy to search, and easy to write. Avoid weird spellings and confusing word choices.

Universal: Think about your audience. Does everyone speak the same language or use similar words? If you have an international audience, make sure you’re careful about using slang words or region-specific terms that might confuse people.

Rare: Do a search before you choose a hashtag. Are there lots of users using your ideal hashtag for some other purposes? If so, you may want to head back to the drawing board.

An example of an effective, engaging hashtag:

Mint.com, an online personal budgeting and financial management company, hosted their #MyMintMoment contest.

The contest was well-designed for a number of reasons, one of which is its hashtag. The hashtag — #MyMintMoment — is simple, short, memorable, and easy to understand. It stayed on-brand and had a clear theme.

The goal of the contest was to get users to post about the things they were saving for. Participants posted pictures of tattoos, vacations, weddings, children, cars — you name it.

This is a great example of an effective hashtag, but it’s also a great example of how UGC can be used to drive marketing decisions. Think about it: Mint asked participants to share posts about things they were saving for. Sounds like an easy way to gain insight surrounding the unique motives and interests that fuel the usage of their service, doesn’t it?

4. Clearly define a theme.

Because most Instagram contests are UGC-based, it’s important to pick a theme so your users know what kinds of pictures and videos to post.

Ideally, you want to a pick a theme that aligns with your market, product, or services. But you can also take advantage of holidays, seasons, and events that align with your product or brand.

An example of an effective theme:

Last summer, D Magazine, a city and lifestyle magazine based in Dallas, used the Texas summer heat to create an effective #StayCoolDallas contest. The contest encouraged participants to submit photos of ways to stay cool in the Dallas heat. Submissions included everything from cold drinks at favorite bars and restaurants to fun summer activities.

This contest and hashtag worked particularly well because of the double meaning of the word “cool” — which ultimately left room for participants to get creative with their interpretations. This is a great example of how to make engagement super easy.

While the hashtag wasn’t totally brand-specific, the theme was very much in line with their brand and passion for all things Dallas. And as a result of the contest, they were left with a ton of new material to get ideas for their next issue.

5. Decide how winners will be chosen.

Part of a well-designed contest is informing your participants of how the winner will be chosen. Most contests are determined based on one of two ways: a vote or a jury. Let’s explore how each option works …

Voting:

A great way to boost the virality of your contest is to have participants compete for the most Likes. If the prize is valuable enough, your participants will likely share their posts with their friends across channels in order to get as many Likes as possible.

This strategy helps maximize your audience’s reach. At the same time, it can be detrimental to your contest, as you run into issues with folks using “Like bots” to gain artificial Likes. To avoid any complications here, you’ll want to put forth very specific rules that address the use of these types of workarounds.

Jury:

For the sake of quality and overall fairness, the jury method is the clear winner. With the jury method, you select a group of experts to decide upon a winner, rather than relying on a voting system.

There are pros and cons to votes or juries, but no matter the way you choose, make sure to clearly state your method so your users know what they’re vying for. Many brands choose to have a mixed-method approach and use a combination of voting and jury to determine the winner.

6. Choose an appropriate award.

When determining what the award for you contest should be, you need to consider your target audience, your budgetary constraints, and how aggressive your goals are.

Remember that by asking your audience to participate in the contest, you’re asking them to take action on something. As with any effort like this, you’ll need the value of the prize to outweigh the cost and energy required to enter the contest. While people might gloss over an opportunity to win a free t-shirt, it’s likely that they’d be willing to jump through a few hoops for something like a free trip.

While your prize should match the entry action, it should also align with the interests of your target audience. Ask yourself: What might my target audience like to have? Your list of answers for this — budget not considered — might be huge. Sure, everyone wants that free trip we mentioned earlier, but that’s not the point. The goal is to find a prize that’s both valuable and relevant to your brand.

Gift cards, free services, coupons, giveaways, and product goodie bags are all common prizes that brands use for contests, but we’re always in favor of getting creative, too.

Example of a creative contest prize:

One of our favorite examples of contest prizes was Sperry’s Photo Real Design Contest. Sperry encouraged users to post “epic photos” that represented an “odyssey.”

Participants then submitted photos of all kinds of things — nature shots, colorful art, real people, etc. — to be judged based on creativity and the number of Likes it received.

The winner that was chosen received a unique pair of Sperry shoes featuring their photo. Talk about a creative prize, right? Not to mention, it served as a great example of how brands can use contests to inspire real product ideas.

7. Create terms & conditions.

Don’t forget that when you create a competition with a prize, you must follow legal guidelines. The laws that will apply to you depend on where you’re based and who you allow to enter your contest, so you should consult your lawyer for help drafting your terms and conditions. Creating a terms & conditions page is a must.

Here are some common terms people include:

The name and contact details of the promoting brand

The dates of the contest

The rules of who can enter (such as age and employee restrictions)

The guidelines for how people enter

The guidelines for how a winner is chosen

The date and way winners will be announced

The date and way the winner will be informed

The time period the winner has to respond and claim their prize

The specific of the prize (including number of prizes, description of prizes, and any caveats)

The details of how the prize will be delivered

Acknowledge that the promotion isn’t sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with Instagram or any other social media used throughout the contest.

Note: Check out Instagram’s Promotion guidelines and make sure to comply with their rules.

8. Promote like crazy.

Now that you’ve got a solid plan in place, it’s time to promote the heck out of your contest.

Where’s the best place to start spreading the word? The possibilities are seemingly endless, but here are a few ideas to inspire your promotion efforts:

Your blog. Write a post on your site detailing the contest, and use it as a launch point for your contest’s landing page.

Social media. What better place to launch a social media contest than on social media? Direct your existing followers to the contest by including a shortened link in your bio and referencing that link in your promotional posts.

Email. Extend the invitation to participate to your email subscribers by sending over a quick and friendly email to announce the offer.

9. Monitor submissions.

Monitoring both your promotional efforts and the level of participation during your contest is essential for meeting your goals and creating a plan to follow up on your contest.

Make sure to determine what metrics you’d like to use and how you’ll keep track of them. Here are some metrics to consider using:

Number of submissions – Total number of posts submitted in compliance with your terms and conditions.

Likes per submission – Helps you keep track of potential winners if your contest is decided by vote.

Number of participants – If users can submit more than one submission, how many unique participants contributed to your contest?

Top participants – Who shared the most content during your campaign? Keeping track of this helps you better engage with your biggest fans.

Total Likes – Measures the total number of Likes on all submissions in your contest.

Total reach – Captures the number of followers of your participants at the time of submission. Meant to show you the potential reach of your campaign.

Follower growth during contest – Measure how much your following increased during the contest’s time period.

If your current audience is relatively small, and you don’t expect more than 30 submissions to your contest, you may decide to monitor your contest manually. To do this, assign someone the task of keeping track of submissions each day. At the end of the contest, someone will have to go through each submission and measure and write down the results from each submission.

If you’re monitoring your contest manually, try using a tool like Tagboard or Google Alerts to keep track of when your hashtag is being mentioned online, making it easier to track submissions. (HubSpot customers: You can set up a custom Stream in your Social Monitoring tool to keep tabs on a specific hashtag. Learn more here.)

If you’re expecting well over 30 submissions, however, you can imagine how difficult monitoring your submissions might be. If that’s the case, you may want to explore an Instagram-specific tool such as Iconosquare.

10. Follow up accordingly.

Once the contest is over, you can’t forget to follow up on the rules you set in the first place. Keep your terms and conditions in mind when reviewing the submissions to ensure that you’re being 100% fair in your evaluation.

Again, this is why establishing your terms and conditions early on is so important, as it will provide you with an documented plan for selecting, contacting, and awarding the winner.

Once you’ve selected and notified the winner, don’t forget to make the announcement publicly. Here’s an example of how to do so from D Magazine‘s #StayCoolDallas contest:

Instagram Contest Ideas

Now that you know how to run a contest, you’ll need to dream up ways to make your contest interesting, compelling, and appropriate for your brands. Here are some of the top contest ideas for Instagram:

1. Caption Contest

The perfect caption can make or break an Instagram post, so why not source the creativity of your audience and get some laughs along the way?

The caption contest is a great choice for Instagram because it allows your audience to stop and think about the contest (and, in effect, your brand) while providing a low-friction way for them to participate.

2. User-Generated Content

User-generated content — or any content produced by unpaid contributors — is a win/win for a brand. They get to participate and possibly win prizes; you get to enjoy extended reach by tapping into your audience’s audiences (say that 10 times fast). Not to mention that your brand benefits from the social proof of de facto testimonials from their participation.

Plus, to get even more mileage from the contest, you can ask participants’ permission to feature their content on your channels, giving you more content to promote.

3. Trivia Contest

With a trivia contest, you’re challenging your audience to demonstrate what they know. This encourages engagement on your posts and generates awareness for your brand and/or the topic that you’re shining the spotlight on. All you have to do is ask a question and reward those who get the answer correct. That reward may come in the form of a prize or as entry to win a prize.

4. Engage to Win

These types of contests are perhaps one of the more popular on Instagram because they solicit direct engagement as a way to enter. This may come in the form of likes, follows, shares, or tagging people. By doing this, you receive a ton of engagement as a result of the incentive, and this can increase your brand reach.

5. 1 Like 1 Vote

This contest usually relies on user-generated content but takes it a step further. The content gets promoted, and the audience is asked to vote (with a like) on the best entry, whether it’s a song, drawing, selfie, or other showcase of talent/personality. For this reason, your “contestants” are further incentivized to promote your contest to their audiences.

6. Raffle or Game

A raffle is just as possible online as it is in person. You can direct your audience to participate in whatever way you see fit to choose a random number or receive a raffle ticket. At the end, use a random number generator to select the winner. You can also do games such as “guess how many marbles are in the jar” or “how many differences can you find in these two pictures” as a way for participants to win/enter.

7. Offline Challenge

Just because you’re spreading the word of your contest through Instagram doesn’t mean it has to be based or held on Instagram. You can incentivize your audience to do something outdoors, participate in a fitness challenge, or perform some other activity.

Ready to Run a Contest on Instagram?

Now that you know everything it takes to run a successful, engaging Instagram contest, go put your knowledge to work for your brand.

Not only will you end up engaging and expanding your audience, but you’ll also end up with great new content you can use to inspire future content and contests.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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queernuck · 7 years ago

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Lean and Honey: Gucci Mane & Rupi Kaur as Contemporaries

A recent profile of Rupi Kaur on The Cut, as picked up and redoubled by Deadspin, puts forth an unsettling topography which anyone engaging Kaur’s work must currently navigate: defending even the principle of��“net art” is implied to be a support of Kaur’s work itself, a precarity that requires a great deal of exegesis, given the sources from which it hails and the means by which it creates a space for itself. In attempting to discuss this, one is effectively given over to a certain series of holdings about the affectations Kaur plays with, as well as the origins and judgments one makes upon those, their worth, and a complicated assemblage that goes far beyond her. And analyzing this discussion without a sort of act of fictionalization, a means of understanding a profile of Kaur as fictional, her poetry as poetic fiction, the means by which even recollection is an act of fiction-writing leads eventually to invoking an artist whose work stretches across an incredible breadth: Gucci Mane.

The same day that Žižek released the promising Lenin 2017, a work reminiscent of a much younger Žižek in its forward, open, irreverently Hegelian engagement with the legacy of Stalinism, Gucci Mane’s autobiography was released. The cover is a tasteful, subdued matte gold, with a shot of Gucci’s right hand wearing a large, diamond-covered watch. The back is a full-size portrait of Gucci, a thoughtful smile and a large ring on his finger serving to frame the famous Ice Cream Cone tattoo that is the subject of one of the later anecdotes in the book. Gucci Mane’s strength does not lie with prose, and at some points coauthor Neil Martinez-Belkin appears to have a heavier hand than one may like. But with Gucci Mane, there is no questioning authenticity. Perhaps one can question authorship, but to do such is to undermine the textual structure in a manner that does not disturb it due to tensions within itself, but rather through a process of imposition, a creation-of-truth that does not understand the vitality of fiction to Gucci's work, to the work of numerous others in similar structure, to effectively create a structural limitation that is levied largely through half-truth, to a truth that denies it fictional quality even through an act of fiction-writing, a fictive act.

Martinez-Belkin’s differentiation from Gucci is apparent largely in the way that one finds a process of drawing oneself into the book, such that it eventually smooths into Gucci’s comfortable storytelling style. The experience Martinez-Belkin has writing for XXL certainly influenced the style of the book, which often has magazine-esque asides to quote Gucci’s lyrics, reviews of his work, or news articles about him. While the lengthiness of these excerpts can be a bit jarring, one would be hard-pressed to trim many of them, given the way that they capture something about Gucci’s rapping that is incredibly difficult to put into text – the way in which his voice captures a unique depth, his southern affectations and the warm, even overwhelming qualities of his voice foundational to his rapping style. When he talks about some of his most famous songs, “Lemonade” being perhaps the most anticipated, the way that it is surrounded by incredibly evocative, personal storytelling conveys the life of Gucci Mane in a way that glamorizes not to support or to lure, but to create a proper space in which Gucci’s life may be viewed. The scale at which these songs are made, the way that Gucci was first coming up rapping as he was still serving dope, the way that stays in jail punctuate his life from the beginning of the book, how he talks about getting clean not as a way of demeaning those who do use, but coming to terms with how his own PTSD (as he himself names it) and the lifestyle he was afforded alongside of it lead to a lot of lean, a lot of ecstasy, bars, weed, the works: his guidance involves quite a bit of reveling in just how good the times were, but ultimately come to his current station in life being one from which he can actually meaningfully make music he wants to make, create more than just music for himself, but take part in an entire movement of sound that he has been locked up or leaning for much of. Understanding the book as a sort of fictionalized text, one that is not Gucci Mane’s own journal but rather a recollection that has been restructured such that it can take on the narrative structure of a book, a translation from Gucci as an engaging and genuine person who has made some of the most compelling rap music of the 21st Century to Gucci Mane, New York Times bestselling author, is understanding what the structural impetus behind fiction serves to do. For Martinez-Belkin, the task is to present the machine of structuring the text as a book in order to create a measure between the fiction of Gucci’s music and the fiction of the text itself. Meanwhile, the opposite is on display in a book such as Go Ask Alice, a lurid and largely discredited tale of a girl caught in the world of drugs, a hopelessly dated artifact of young adult literature from the earliest days of the genre, one that is still taught not as a metafictional work, as a sort of articulation of a fictional idea through the affectation of the diary as a fictional construct, but as if it were a primary source. The rather suspicious origins of the book, its connections to anti-drug advocacy and the incidental homophobia or the fascination with the main character’s suffering that characterizes its structure lead one to believe that there is far more interest in the book as a machine for affecting an affirmation of certain already-maintained opinions through coopting counterculture aesthetics rather than as part of a process of development. Development, the means through which fiction becomes literature, bestsellers become classics, the process through which the “literary” is marked can be clearly seen in both Kaur’s work and the response to it. Originally posting her poetry on tumblr, then instagram, the article dismisses her short-form poetry as unimportant or unserious specifically because of its juxtaposition with the structure of instagram, rather than acknowledging it as an attempt to explore literature and writing through a certain means of engagement, the use of the format as a means of rabattement upon the poetry at hand. When words are precious few, being evocative, duplicitous, and most of all relatable certainly gains attention. Milk and Honey was a self-released book that became a runaway bestseller. When discussing its ubiquity, the way in which it was divided into certain easily digestible thematic components and written in a fashion that engaged with the reader in a pop subjectivity, an intentionally cultivated aesthetic which aims toward a lack of pretension as beginning a process of inviting the reader into active identification and subjectification, leads to a process of identifying that gives Kaur a great deal of her audience.

And indeed, the earlier-mentioned piece in The Cut, which follows Kaur from NYU to Union Square by way of The Strand, evokes purposeful moments that seem unfair to Kaur in isolation, even if their assemblage implies a certain sort of fair assessment of individual aspects of Kaur’s work. When she discusses the design of a collection of Kafka’s works, Kafka is mentioned before the designer she is actually admiring, in order to create the imagery of her judging a book by its cover, rather than discussing the evocative potential of book design. Indeed, while the Light Novel as a literary form is a particular roughly named subgenre in Japanese literature, the power of a cover to shape the work is hard to underestimate given the means by which the Monotagari series was relatively sparsely illustrated but an enormously popular series even before its anime adaptation. While many anime are adaptations of manga series, that LNs provide their fair share of anime fodder is in fact perhaps an invitation to judge a book by its cover. The cuter the girl, the more likely she will make the leap from page to screen, from television to movie, from Blu-Ray to figurine. Monogatari itself is a highly metafictional work if read as an indictment of the structures of fanservice that it features, but even more jarring if read as a failed attempt to justify those structures through a sort of pretentious process of grasping at straws until a halfway-readable novel comes away. The avant-garde structure of Kaur’s poetry are not terribly avant-garde when analyzed in a literary context, but perhaps that is just the problem: analyzing them as such.

Addressing Kaur’s larger efforts to work as an artist, one eventually comes to her relatively sophomoric sophomore effort, The Sun And All Her Flowers. In discussing it we are faced with a sort of challenging exercise: we do not wish to collapse the potential of the text that she lays out, rather affirming it to say more meaningfully that her work does not do it particularly well. There is not a failure in walking the already-laid path, there are instances where her work holds poignancy. For artists that have gained enormous popular consciousness, such as Justin Beiber, there is often a sort of critical backlash to be expected. But the turn by which that backlash becomes a renewed acceptance, the way in which it is then realized for that which it may be: a gem of pop production, a feat of exposing the weaknesses in a very strong voice as part of creating tension within a song, the same sort of draw that brings pop aficionados to be more devoted to production teams than pop stars in particular, is all part of the realization of a given sort of art as not merely accessible in a literal sense, but as part of an inspirational process, a process whereby flows of generative energy are encouraged and stoked. Kaur’s poetry has often been parodied, and it lies within a newfound tradition that largely exists in bookstore displays and the precious meta-schooling that takes place between Junior Year in high school and Sophomore Year in college. Kaur’s poetry can, in isolation, serve very well to evoke the clumsiness that characterizes the process of recollecting or living such times. But when collected into a book, it does not stand up very well. The matte black cover, the coy typefaces, the neither-here-nor-there sketches found in Milk and Honey were inviting, interesting, very nice in the hands. Opening it and finding a poem that immediately brought forth certain memories was rather easy. But it was also rather easy to pick up The Sun And All Her Flowers and open it to an almost artlessly drab poem about sexual arousal, one far too proud of its own cleverness. It is best noted as a book of Instagram Poetry, of twitter literature, a book not merely meant to be read but as part of creating a certain image in reference to Kaur’s, and while Kaur's poetry can be quite evocative, it does not stand as a book, and neither does it particularly need to. Whether it stands as more is a question that largely relies upon looking at her work in assemblage, as a milieu, rather than a mere text or even collection of texts. Challenging texts like Han Kang's Human Acts are pivotal, are contemporary in addition to postmodern, present us with interesting questions on the structure of authorhood and are moreover still nestled nicely between popular literature and literary fiction. I think Human Acts is an incredibly important book that explores the body, the way in which the body acts, the means by which the body may be constructed, collapsed, maimed, traumatized in a way that Kaur is unlikely to, but this is because Human Acts is an incredibly timely and moreover simply incredible work that will hold certain characteristics of itself as time goes on. With The Sun And All Her Flowers debuting to an unseasonably warm fall perfect for instagram, it is sure to sell and moreover sell very well. Whether or not it will stand up as a book of poetry is uncertain, and while it remains to be seen whether Kaur can retain her caché when working primarily in the metatextual topography of the internet, without the luxury of near-anonymity or pseudonymous duplicity afforded to artists such as Daniel Lopatin or James Ferraro, writing poetry that echoes the forms of Barbara Kruger or Jenny Holzer without nearly as much pathos, one eventually does reach a questioning of what exactly Kaur’s poetry is meant to do. With mildly feminist aesthetics frequently evoked, sometimes to greater effect than others, one questions if her treatment of the body is all that interesting, all that revolutionary. Similarly, while her discussions of immigrant experience are occasionally well-put, they often require a certain structural presence from the diasporic form, are written not with the mindfulness of a certain gaze nor of an ostentatious deference from it, but instead a clear glance out of the side of the eye to make sure the gaze is present, and then a performance within it. Kaur is certainly less guilty of this than the article’s presentation of her as the daughter of Indian immigrants who worked blue-collar Canadian jobs and implored her to pursue a science degree, a sort of classic story of defiant daughter that inevitably runs into orientalist ideological structures when repeated even if that story merely happens to be true. Much like the stories Gucci Mane tells, there is not a larger violent structure that can be fully affirmed by its violent rearticulation of a fictional preface to the anecdotal, a fictional continuity that only can be named when it is first allowed to settle upon the text in an act of overcoding. The same is true for the totalizing means by which Kaur’s work about the body becomes reterritorialized by a largely heterosexual feminist ideology of the gendered body and how that implies certain necessities from both the reader and Kaur herself. Critiquing the presence of these fictions in Kaur’s work is worthwhile, but only insofar as their origin is also recognized explicitly, as just that, the origin at-hand.

To understand Gucci Mane simply by reading his autobiography is to largely miss what makes it so wonderful, in that it creates a metatextual assemblage between both highs and lows of his career, between straight edges and doubled cups, the path from “Lemonade” to "Plain Jane” through Gucci’s career rearticulated within the book, a music of near complete silence. To understand the book without the music is to effectively imagine a Gucci Mane that does not exist but moreover fundamentally cannot exist, cannot even be imagined. One can imagine Kaur without her instagram, without her aesthetics, and the result is unsurprisingly flat, but doing so robs her of what she has been doing so phenomenally. The accessibility with which she creates is itself in some way inspiring, even if negatively. Many critiques of her are misguided, but many others acknowledge a fundamental level on which her work can be regarded and then go on to assess it as such and still find it wanting. To limit her work to simply poetry, to attempt to make her suitably literary when she has never particularly aimed at such is an unfair attempt to redefine art in a fashion which fetishizes the book, the gallery, the shelf, the coffee table. To deny Kaur as anything other than a writer is to effectively cut oneself off from meaningfully critiquing the artifice of capitalist producing-production which has seen her work spread so far, that has seen it disseminated along certain lines of affinity that develop it far past itself, out of context, out of joint with its own message.

#rupi kaur #Gucci Mane

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judefan829-blog · 4 years ago

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