#this isn’t even to say that cancel culture has had only a negative impact (again. nuance)

[mossmacabre]

the way absolutely no discussion on any complex topic/issue can be had on the internet bc nuance has ceased to exist in the wake of cancel culture lol. like i promise you almost none of these things have the definitive answers you want them to have so badly. not to be one of those people but please fucking turn off your phone and go read a book

[musette22]

Hi guys, 

I have been away for a few days visiting family, but I am now back and I just want to say a couple of things that I feel I need to say. What I said in a previous post about my anxiety and mental health still stands, but I also recognise that whatever I'm feeling doesn't even come close to measuring up to the sadness and fear and anger that many of you who have encountered racism first hand are experiencing right now. So while I'm still not going to answer individual asks about this – for the reasons I gave previously and because I don't want to take the focus away too much from where it ought to be – I do want to make my position clear here. This blog is for a large part about Sebastian and will continue to be about him for the foreseeable future, so what has happened should be addressed here, and my POC followers deserve to know that I support you without reservation and that this is still a safe space for you and always will be.

I want to make it very clear that Sebastian does not in any way factor into my thoughts and feelings about the Black Lives Matter movement. I condemn any and all forms of racism and I stand with the BLM movement fully and unconditionally. This has to end, and we have to do our best to make the changes the world needs, together. We should all speak up and stand up for what is right, and supporting marginalised and oppressed communities should always take precedence over any attachment or allegiance we might feel towards privileged (and in this case white, male) celebrities – that goes without saying. Also, I am not by any means an expert on any of these issues, and I am not American nor POC, so I won't pretend to have all the insights and answers. I can only tell you some of my thoughts on Sebastian’s actions in this regard, and hope that that means something to some of you.

·        Yes, I believe Sebastian could and should've handled this situation differently and better, regardless of what reasons he may have had for handling it the way he did. His actions have left me disappointed and confused too, and as much as I love him (I really do!) this is not his finest hour. He’s a grown man who’s responsible for his own behaviour, the good and the bad, and I’m not going to defend his behaviour in this case, because I believe it to be lacking. It’s not okay to blindly defend your faves’ actions just because you love them. It’s good to be critical and hold the people you love accountable when they do stuff that doesn’t pass muster.

·        Yes, people have every right to be upset, disappointed or even angry, and, in the case of his fans, to unstan if they are feeling any of those things. I am in no position to tell other people how to feel about this, so I’m not going to. The BLM movement and the overarching issues of racism and inequality in the US and elsewhere are much, much bigger than any one individual, and infinitely more important than any part of celebrity culture. Moreover, I am a firm believer in putting our mental health first. If you can’t support Sebastian after what’s happened because you feel hurt or anxious or otherwise negatively impacted, then it’s perfectly acceptable and even preferable to step away. We cannot make the changes the world needs if we don’t take care of our own mental health first.

·        No, I do not believe hate or harassment (whether against Sebastian or against other people who have joined in this discourse in whatever way) is the answer. I think some of you will know that that’s one of the beliefs by which I live and approach any situation, not just this one. I am an advocate of communication, of learning and growing, wherever possible. Of course, sometimes communication just isn’t enough, but I believe it often can be when it comes to people making singular mistakes, like in Sebastian’s case. Voicing disappointment in fandom/standom too often equals cancellation, which I frankly find short-sighted and kind of lazy. We should be allowed to be disappointed in someone without it meaning we no longer love them, and normalise that notion. Celebrities are still humans, and as such they will make mistakes, through which they will hopefully learn and grow, just like the rest of us. At this point in time, I believe Sebastian to be a good person who did a stupid thing, so I personally am not going write him off right now because of what happened over the past week, but I do sincerely hope he’ll do better in the future.

·        I do think the preoccupation with whether or not a celeb posts something on their social media is missing the point. This is not about celebrities. It’s about black people being killed by police in a system that seemingly places no value on the lives of its black citizens; it’s about structural inequality and racism being rampant in the US and many other places in the world, and about how we can change that. This is what the focus should be on, not on who's posting what on social media when. Again, feeling disappointed, mad, and upset with Sebastian is okay and fair, and you every right to voice that if that’s how you feel, but I also think we have to remember to focus our time, energy, and activism where it matters, and that there are other ways to help the cause besides posting about it on social media, which unfortunately seems to be performative to a large extent anyway. But I do believe that for someone with a significant social media following like Sebastian does, it’s important to show solidarity with those who might be impacted by everything that’s happening, and make it clear you are on their side. 

Long story short: regardless of what reasons Seb may have had for not publicly showing his support for the BLM movement sooner, I still think he made the wrong decision in this case and he should absolutely step up his game in the future. It’s not okay that it took him so long to speak up about what’s been going on and I fully understand people’s aggravation over it. But while some mistakes are certainly worse than others, generally speaking making mistakes doesn’t necessarily make us bad people. Unless, of course, we don’t learn from them, but Sebastian also isn’t some serial offender. He’s shown himself to be a decent person time and time again, and that’s why I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt and allow him the opportunity to learn from this particular mistake and show that he can do better. I know some of you will disagree with me and that’s fine. This is not the absolute truth, just my opinion, and I realise I am also still learning.

[animethings]

Reasons to Watch Long Anime Series

An original post documenting all the reasons to watch long anime series. A long anime series can depend on your own definition. It can be 50+, 500+, or in my case, 980+. I was inspired to create this post by my frustration of trying to convince a friend to start Detective Conan and failing because he is stubborn with his views. I couldn’t even convince him to watch FMA:B or HxH ):

This list is not in any particular order. Blockquotes represent the excuses for not wanting to watch long anime series. The comment below it represents the reasons to watch long anime series and my response to the excuse.

My comments may be negative, condescending, and cynical. It is only because I love the anime franchises of Detective Conan, Fullmetal Alchemist, Hunter x Hunter, Bleach, etc. And even though I haven’t completed many of the popular long anime series, I respect D. Gray-Man, Gintama, One Piece, Fairy Tail, Pokemon, Dragon Ball, Reborn !, and many others.

If I have offended you, it was never my intention. If I hurt your feelings, I never meant to. If you disagree with my reasons and find fault in them, consider my viewpoints and then send me a response. If I come off as ignorant, politely inform me. If I bashed your favourite anime or character, it was only an example. If I haven’t defended your favourite anime or character, oops. If I repeat myself, it is because the excuses are similar. If you have another excuse / reason, let me know and I’ll add it here.

It’s too long.

Imagine if your favourite seasonal anime went with a perennial episodic structure rather than a seasonal one. Would you still have started it ? A seasonal structure is more profitable and less risky to studios and can be just as many episodes as anime with a perennial episodic structure. It depends on the studio and scriptwriters.

Anime TV series are usually split up into many seasons. Treat the anime like you’re watching the entire series as separately released seasons and not one singular continuous season. Example: Blue Exorcist has 2 seasons and is listed separately on anime databases while D. Gray-Man is listed as a single entry with many episodes even though it has 5 seasons. Why do you insist on watching Blue Exorcist instead of D. Gray-Man when the genres are similar and they are both mainly about exorcists fighting demons to keep the world a safer place ? Maybe you’re more into the plot, or maybe the animation is better, or maybe you’re unwilling to watch an anime that isn’t listed as multiple seasons, or maybe you’re just intimidated by the number of episodes and seasons. Whatever the reason is, don’t judge an anime by the amount of episodes it has. Don’t judge an anime franchise by whether it is of a perennial or a seasonal episodic structure.

I can watch 5 other anime instead of just this one.

True, you could watch multiple 12 ep anime instead of one long anime, but would it be memorable ? If you binge a 12 ep anime, each around 20 min long ( excluding openings and endings ), at 1x speed, that is 240 min, which is 4 hours. After those 4 hours, you would be like wow great anime 10/10 or whatever rating you give. Maybe give a review or recommendation. Then, you’d move on to the next anime. If the anime didn’t leave a lasting impression on you, what was the point ? Just to say that you’ve seen it and vaguely remember the plot and your opinion on it the next time that particular anime is brought up in conversation ?

Although being held emotionally hostage is tough and terrifying, a long anime would leave a greater impression. You can witness character growth / development, plot progression, and many other storytelling elements at a much greater level. Maybe you don’t have all the time in the world to watch 100+ episodes of an anime. But you can also come back time and time again with fresh perspectives instead of force-feeding shorter anime in a day.

Yes, this is a hypothetical, and may not apply to everyone. I am only asking for you to consider that situation and my perspective; you do not have to agree with it.

I’ll get bored

The other fans of the franchise didn’t get bored. If the anime has become increasingly boring, then put it on hold. I acknowledge the fact that sometimes the animators / creators will run out of stories to tell. If it’s not your cup of tea, then by all means, drop it. You can come back whenever you want to give the anime a try again. 

I don’t want to watch a lot then quit.

No one is forcing you to quit the anime entirely. There is no pressure to watch every single episode. You can put it on hold and come back later. An indefinite drop can be reversed.

What if the anime becomes increasingly worst, unwatchable, annoying, etc. over time ?

If it does become that before you hit the latest episode, then put it on hold, drop it, or talk with your friends / the anime community about it and ask if the series gets better later on. If you are already caught up and think that the anime has decreased in quality, put it on hold or drop it.

I’ll watch too much at a time, get burnt out, and not come back to it

No one is forcing you to binge watch every single episode in a certain timeframe. You can always take a break or watch a few and come back later.

What if I don’t like the main cast or find one of them annoying ? I would have to stick with them for the rest of the anime.

Then put it on hold, drop it, or deal with it. As of 06 September 2020, I am on episode 44 of One Piece and I find Usopp absolutely annoying and unlikable. However, I have been told that he gets better. So, I continue the series because I like the other main cast and am invested in the story and the world of One Piece. Additionally, I’ve been reading the Black Clover manga way before the anime released and imagined Asta’s voice differently. I got used to his annoying voice over time and still continue the anime because I love the story and I want to see who eventually becomes the Wizard King. ( His voice also haunts me when I read the manga now )

Too many filler / fluff episodes

Google >> ( Anime ) non-filler episodes >> Watch according to that list

Also, I do not find filler episodes to be boring or straying away from the main plot. Filler episodes provide me with more interactions between the characters that regular anime ( with 12 or 24 episodes ) don’t have. Although it may seem unnecessary to some, filler flashbacks gives the audience a deeper insight into a character’s backstory, childhood, past experiences, traumatic experiences, etc. It can show character growth or development. The adventures to other areas expands the universe of the anime and leads to more world-building. The stories and possibilities are also limitless in comedy anime. Filler episodes can also introduce more aspects of Japanese culture ( or whatever the culture is prevalent ) and introduces new information.

Fillers between arcs are nice since most are slice-of-life types and setting up for the next arc. If you think that each arc is the same where there is a threat / enemy and they must defeat the final boss or everyone will die, yes that’s the basic formula. But keep in mind that it is a story after all. The arc is a larger story with the same characters doing different things to solve their problems. So what ? Some series are known for their consistencies and some for their randomness. Just like how almost every Detective Conan episode ( DC doesn’t have arcs unless it’s about the main plot ) is about solving cases and follows the same basic formula, and almost every episode of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K is random, spontaneous and full of comedy. I don’t watch shoujo anime as often so I won’t comment on that.

There are also many other reasons that fluff episodes are great. You don’t always have to watch them, and the wait may not always be worth it, but you can always skip them and not miss anything. But then again, Detective Conan was my first anime and I’ve learned how to be patient with an extremely slow plot. My patience is especially challenged whenever a new episode releases and it is a TV original Detective Boys episode ((:

While some shows are known to stretch plots into more episodes, those episodes may not be of the same “ quality ” as the rest of the show. This may included tropes, overused jokes, etc. It is still considered additional content, even if the quality suffers. This is usually the case when the anime catches up to the source material. You can always read the manga.

Filler / Fluff episodes are always controversial and I generally don’t mind them.

What if the anime cancels and all of the time I spent watching it has been a waste ?

Long anime series are rarely ever canceled because it’s a popular show. The anime usually tries to catch up with the manga and / or ends when the story ends. If the anime does end at a particular arc, there is always the manga. Also, if you had fun / a good time watching the show, then it wasn’t a waste.

I don’t want to.

Why ? Elaborate. Do you not like the genre ? The plot ? The animation style ? The studio ? The reviews ? The popularity ? The year it was released ? The fandom ? The voice actors ? The over-hype ? The pressure from friends, family, the anime community ? The memes ? What is it ?

It’s a waste of time.

The time investment is usually worth it because there is more to watch. Whenever I watch regular anime with 12 or 24 episodes, I usually end up feeling empty and wanting more. Who doesn’t want more content, scenes and character interactions ? If you enjoy something, then it wasn’t a waste of time.

Too many characters

Google >> ( Anime ) Characters Wiki / Fandom

You don’t have to know and remember every single character, their backstories, their interests / dislikes, their relationships with others, etc. to enjoy the episode. Additionally, if you really do pay attention to the series and is more invested, character deaths / losses will be even more impactful and significant. Characters can die easily ( like in Attack on Titan), but it doesn’t make their death any less important. Lives, fictional or not, have value and meaning. If in a war, 100 lives are lost, those lives are important in itself becau- oh that is probably a post for another time. Anyways, you don’t need to know everyone to understand or enjoy an episode or an anime series. 

Quantity isn’t everything.

True. Sometimes the quality of animation rules over everything else, or maybe the plot pacing, or the character progression ( or the lack of it ), or something else. I’m not saying, WATCH ALL ANIME THAT IS OVER 100+ EPISODES BECAUSE THEY’RE BETTER. I’m saying to give them a chance. They’ve stood against the test of time, the changing audience, popular demand and culture, and other obstacles to get where they are today. Some are classics ( such as Naruto ) and some are beginning to / have hit the 100 episode mark of single entry anime ( like Black Clover ). Quantity isn’t everything is a valid point as well as quality isn’t everything. You enjoy what you enjoy. It’s never a waste to commit to something longer than what you usually watch if you enjoy it.

I want to finish everything I watch, regardless if it’s good or bad.

So you can sit through 12 episodes of a “ bad ” anime but not try out a single episode of a potentially “ good ” anime ?

Other Reasons to Watch:

When a long series ends, I can finally rest in peace.

Soundtracks + More opening and closing themes

Nostalgia once it ends

Seeing an anime from 1996 to 2020+ and the changes it goes through ( when rewatching or watching for the first time ) is astounding and shows how much the industry has changed and developed over time.

Conclusions + Repeated Statements

Main excuse for not watching long anime: It’s too long

Main response: No one is forcing you or pressuring you to binge watch everything. You can always put it on hold or drop it if you don’t like it.

Don’t judge an anime by the number of episodes.

If you had a good time, it wasn’t a waste.

[deltaengineering]

Bummer Anime 2018 Part 2: shoujo to the rescue

It got better, mostly because it could hardly get worse. That doesn’t mean it was a smooth ride, of course. I would like to state, for the record, that I’m not trying to be the funny guy who hates everything here; the season’s just that unusually bad. As before, the source for the ad copy at the end of each block is this.

Asobi Asobase

What: A bunch of assholes play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

✅ It’s another exuberant comedy, and unlike Chio-chan, I can’t catch this one on the execution: It has the technical chops and honestly good comedic timing.

❌❌ Initially wants to make you believe it’s a pleasant cute girls doing cute things show, but what it actually is is a brutally annoying and ugly explosion in the reactionface factory. Since the production values are there, it’s rather too good at that.

❌❌ I was trying to compare it to something, and the best I could come up with was rage comics. Yeah, it’s anime rage comics. It’s that bad.

❌❌ I would feel more benevolent towards it if it were shorter, but at full length its high energy screaming based assault is mostly just tiresome.

♎ This is one of those rare shows where even I will say your mileage may vary. It’s really good at what it does, but I hate everything it does. Hooray for the subversion, but at the end of the day you’re still annoying and ugly.

ANN sez: “It's this exact mix of stupid crassness and innocent naiveté that I think truly defines high-school life, and Asobi Asobase nails it perfectly. “

Hyakuren no Haou to Seiyaku no Valkyria

What: A smartphone with a light novel protagonist attached time travels to the bronze age, establishes a incest-fascist harem regime with the power of Wikipedia.

❌❌ read the synopsis again please

❌❌ there’s more idiocy than that, believe it or not (ex.: smartphone hotline to his actual imouto, for the feels), but I haven’t got all day.

❌❌ Basing your isekai shit on “history” (i.e., a LN author’s idiotic idea of history) instead of an MMO or whatever only serves to piss me off even more.

❌❌ Actually not better than Isekai Smartphone, which makes it one of the worst anime episodes I have ever seen. Congratulations. The only thing it has over Death March is that it doesn’t spend 80% of the time in menus, but it makes menus look pretty good so it’s a wash.

ANN brainfarts: “Yuuto also seems to be limiting his phone searches to historically accurate things as well, which shows that he's really thinking about the fact that he's in the past – no one's inventing the rocket here, they're just learning to grind grain and use the phalanx formation for battles.”

Phantom in the Twilight

What: Chinese girl travels to London, inadvertently inherits her great-grandma’s vampire harem. 

✅ Step 1 of every otome harem appraisal is determining how much of a wet blanket the protagonist is; Ton here is pretty spunky and even gets to kick some ass, so well done on that.

✅ Some of the right kind of nonsense for my taste, stuff like chav goblins and Jiangshi with miniguns is always appreciated.

✅ Random shows ending up with bizarre minimal techno soundtracks is still something that I approve of.

❌ Still not the glorious kind of nonsense that Dance With Devils had, nor the disregard of actual romance in favor of comedy that Dame x Prince exhibited. It’s an otome-ass otome harem and that’s not inspiring confidence for the long term.

❌ Looks cheap, and that won’t be getting any better.

ANN sez: “The fantasy worldbuilding here also felt far more sturdy than in many similar shows; this isn't a world where the Good Fantasy Guys fight the Bad Fantasy Guys, this is a world where creatures like goblins and spriggans and werewolves all exist, all possess their own cultures and priorities, and uneasily rub shoulders with each other.”

Jashin-chan Dropkick

What: Demon snake girl wants to murder the chuuni gothloli that summoned her, gets owned right back.

❌❌ It’s the second coming of Dokuro-chan, with every punchline being torture. Quite literally for the characters, and consequently for the audience as well.

❌❌ Needless to say, the entire cast (there’s some additional supernatural babes, none of which make much of an impression) are jerks and the show being wantonly mean-spirited towards them does not cancel that out. 

❌ Somehow the second anime about eating reptile ass in recent memory. But Maidragon, as lame as it was, wasn’t as terrible as this. Jashin-chan won’t get into insipid family feels any time soon, but the alternative is worse.

ANN sez: “If this is your taste in humor, it may be worth giving a second episode to see if it starts pulling that off.”

Kyoto Teramachi Sanjou no Holmes

What: Handsome genius antique dealer appraises old pottery and his assistant’s soul.

✅ I have to admit that if you somehow decided to make a otome version of Sherlock without anything so crass as murder, this is how you’d do it. It works.

✅ The leading pair has simple but effective chemistry.

✅ The studio behind it has mostly done porn OVAs before, which is the kind of meta-humor I can get behind.

❌ Based on a series of novels, so naturally the talkytalk gets out of hand.

❌ Doesn’t have the highest budget, tries to make up for it with rainbow-colored garishness. Not a dealbreaker but it could get tiresome.

ANN sez: “While Yagashira cuts a handsome figure as the bishonen, Aoi has more of an ordinary appearance – perhaps deliberately so, since I suspect that the source novels were originally aimed at female audiences.”

Shinya! Tensai Bakabon

What: Showa-era gag manga gets on air again after decades, repeatedly points out how hilarious that is.

❌ Beat-for-beat the same first episode concept as Osomatsu-san.

❌ The main difference is that Bakabon is more willing to look old as fuck, but when they arrive at the non-ruse look at the end of the episode, it’s the same as the non-ruse look that Osomatsu-san ended up at the end of its own first episode.

❌  So guess what, constantly takes potshots at Osomatsu-san, despite being a blatant ripoff of it.

❌❌ When it doesn’t reference Things You Know (if you’re a middle-aged Japanese salaryman), it references its own sorry showa-era gag manga self.

❌❌ I didn’t even like Osomatsu-san but this is an embarrassment.

♎ On the bright side, not as likely to provide fujos with incest shipping material. I fully expect to be proven painfully wrong on this.

ANN sez: Nothing. Way too Japanese for them, I suppose. 

Angolmois - Genkou Kassenki

What: Historical action show wherein a bunch of misfits in medieval Japan fight the Mongols.

✅ Fairly decent action and animation thereof.

✅ Characters seem alright for this sort of thing. Maybe a bit too tryhard violent for my tastes, but that’s still within acceptable parameters.

❌❌ The looks are ruined in postproduction. I could live with the heavyhanded color correction, but what really kills it is the same omnipresent static paper texture over every single shot. It’s bad when it doesn’t change between shots but it’s devastating when it doesn’t move along with zooms and pans, which this show has a lot of.

❌❌ Seriously, I haven’t seen anything as senselessly destroyed by a single AfterEffects layer since Garo: Vanishing Line’s Parkinsonscam, but at least that only affected impact frames. Here it’s literally every frame. Delete that PNG you damn fools.

❌ So yeah, it’s okay-ish but that’s not enough to survive one boneheaded executive decision that’s impossible to ignore. It just comes out as a net negative.

ANN sez: “From its beautifully animated, choreographed, and directed fight scenes to its generally dynamic compositions and keen understanding of visual economy, Angolmois is a visually stunning production.”

Lord of Vermilion - Guren no Ou

What: Tokyo gets enveloped in red mist which raptures most of the population and turns the rest into JRPG characters. They start fighting, we promise.

❌ Has the shape of an obvious Persona clone, but isn’t one; it’s actually based on an arcade CCG. So the source material isn’t very classy to begin with.

❌❌ Haphazardly thrown together so it’s hard to care about anything, especially not the characters.

❌❌ Opens with a flashforward to the climax, so we know this will just end up as overdesigned dudes and dudettes having allegedly epic battles that the show can’t afford to make look good, but can afford to make very red. Thanks for the heads up, I guess.

❌ So it’s quite bad, and not even funny-bad like Caligula was.

ANN sez: “There are always a few action shows like this every season, and they're always entirely overshadowed by that season's versions of shows like My Hero Academia and Banana Fish”

Grand Blue

What: City slicker moves to a beach town expecting to end up in Amanchu; ends up in Animal House instead.

❌❌ Say it with me: Every punchline is the protagonist making a shocked face at dumb meatheads doing something stupid.

♎ For something that I feel like I should hate every second of, I actually didn’t hate it all that much. I even thought it was mostly sort of enjoyable. I don’t really know what exactly does it but I can offer some ideas:

✅ While the punchlines (well, punchline) may be bad, the jokes themselves aren’t. This is a real sitcom with larger-scale comedic setups than you usually see in anime, jokes build upon each other and keep escalating.

✅ Sleazy fratboy humor about partying hard and drinking like an idiot isn’t very profound, but rare at least in anime. And it’s amusing that the overall conceit is that it’s preventing iyashikei from taking place. Novelty counts for something. 

✅ Manages to build awkward comedic situations about buff dudes with their dicks out without resorting to the same old gay panic jokes. Just regular panic, no homo.

✅ Makes a good Friday beach bum combo with Harukana Receive, which incidentally also got better by embracing its more prurient side.

ANN sez: “If Grand Blue Dreaming has a major Achilles heel, its that it isn't self-aware enough to recognize when a joke has run its course. ”

Happy Sugar Life

What: Yandere sociopath adopts a preteen girl (from a parking lot). It’s cute, only not.

✅ Is fully aware that everyone in this show is an asshole and is honestly trying for subversive. At least on the surface.

✅ Goes all on on the imagery, which works. At least on the surface.

❌❌ Simply exploiting the contrast between cuteness and insanity got old about a decade ago; this cranks up the presentation on both sides but doesn’t really add anything new.

❌❌ About as mean-spirited and unpleasant as Mahou Shoujo Site, while having even less to say. 

❌ Doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere; it’s just going to be the main character pwning other people that are just as flamboyantly fucked up as she is, but not as good at it. Starting with a flashforward to the (very edgy, of course) ending like Lord of Vermilion doesn’t help either. And even if they end up rusemanning what is implied there it won’t be much better.

ANN sez: “Happy Sugar Life was on my list of most-anticipated anime this season because its combination of disparate elements seemed so utterly perverse that I was curious to see how they could possibly fit together.“

Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight

What: Girls slowwalk in an academy for stage arts by day, get into metaphorical superbattles by night.

✅✅ What can I say, it’s Love Live x Marimite with a glossy coating of Ikuhara-style operatics. A total deltabait concept if I’ve ever seen one.

✅ Clones the storytelling approach of Ikuhara but not many of his specific directing mannerisms; Since I’m tired of the latter but a sucker for the former, this is a good thing.

✅ In a similar vein, this trades Ikuhara’s functional ciphers for actual characters and his enigmatic arthouse plots for something that obviously makes sense. 

✅ How gay? So gay.

❌ Has the opposite problem of Grand Blue: This is a show that should blow me away, but doesn’t. In fact, if it didn’t bring the big damn musical theater complete with one of the best and most appropriate henshins I’ve ever seen near the end, I’d say it was fairly lame.

❌ Probably has something to do with that in the course of casualizing Ikuhara, the “real” world ended up too bland and the characters too generic. I get that it’s for contrast, but it can be done far better (see Yorimoi for an example).

✅ In any case, it still seems easily worth watching even if it’s not as good as it could be. Maybe it’ll even get better.

ANN sez: “All I can say for certain is that it comes completely out of nowhere, and that it raises all kinds of questions about what kind of series this is going to be.“

Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san

What: Impoverished ghost hunter checks into a haunted hot spring and interacts with the harem that happens to live there.

❌ As generic a 90s ecchi harem comedy as they come; my correspondents tell me that this is extremely reminiscent of Love Hina. Shockingly it’s actually based on a 2016 manga, but you wouldn’t be able to tell.

❌ As such, an abundance of accidental boobplants and other saucy accidents makes up the bulk of what’s going on this show.

✅ The main ghost girl is fairly cute; The main dude is also relatively bearable and has at least one good joke in his backstory (which I won’t spoil), so the core dynamic is surprisingly fine. If the rest of the harem weren’t there, this wouldn’t be such a bad setup. 

❌ Features those dastardly breast-hiding light rays, reportedly even in the AT-X version. This doesn’t affect a large part of the show (the majority is more like the cap above), but boobies are probably still the only reason anyone cares about any of this.

♎ Certainly not good, but the lame shit of yore is not what I’m going to spend energy getting mad at in 2018. The 24 minutes I’m ever going to spend with it felt more nostalgic than anything.

ANN sez: “Ninja girl Sagiri comes off the worst from the situation, with nearly all of her dialogue spent promising to beat the crap out of anyone who doesn't measure up to her moral code. I imagine there must be more to her and the rest of the supporting cast than what we've seen so far, but at the moment they seem an awful lot like stock characters.”

Sirius the Jaeger

What: A broody werewolf and his team of assorted bad dudes hunt vampires in 30s Tokyo.

✅✅ Looks ace, this is an action show with deluxe everything. It better, because being directed by Masahiro Ando is pretty much the start and end of this show’s unique selling points.

✅ Interwar Tokyo with a bit of a gothick twist is a cool setting, and this show can afford to portray it properly.

❌ Seriously though... edgy vampires and edgier werewolves. Come on, son.

❌ Just like Banana Fish, this is a highly polished implementation of something that fundamentally isn’t very interesting to me.

✅ I’d still take it over Fanana Bish because this doesn’t seem to take itself so bloody seriously and is far more comfortable with just being moody action schlock. It’s also less showoffy, believe it or not. What else are you going to watch? Sirius the Jaeger is what you’re going to watch. Sorry.

ANN sez: They only have a preview from Anime Expo, and that boils down to “The second episode is where things start to get interesting.“ I sure hope so.

Well, we got a few acceptable shows in if nothing else, I’ll leave it up to you to figure out which ones those are. I’m cutting my losses here, see you in three months for a hopefully more bountiful season.

[meetophelia]

The Hot Seat - Malachy Luckie

In this instalment of The Hot Seat, Malachy Luckie talks about his journey to become a young producer and creative freelancer, and what he believes needs to change about how young people are able to access the arts.

Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.

I graduated from the University of Surrey last year with a degree in Theatre and Performance. Since then I’ve been working as a self-employed photographer, videographer, and designer, as well as taking on freelance roles in things like marketing, website development, and editing. I’ve recently landed a job as a producer/programmer for a venue in Essex, and I’ve just programmed my first show for their winter season.

Is this what you thought you’d be doing after university?

My ambition after leaving university was to become a producer with a theatre company or at a venue. A few months ago though, when I was on furlough from my job at a pub, that goal seemed completely out of reach. But, a few weeks ago I saw a tweet from a farmer who has posted about having set up an amphitheatre on his land; he was starting a movement called ‘On Farm Culture’ to encourage other land owners and farmers to partner with artists to do the same. I got in touch, and he told me about how he created the space and what he had programmed so far. I then decided to post on social media about my interest in finding a space to try and produce outdoor shows and help get local artists back on their feet. I was contacted by the owners of a local venue who wanted to start putting on outdoor performances on their land. After meeting with them and discussing my vision for the venue, they took me on as their arts producer. While this is the role that I had always aspired to be in after graduating, I didn’t expect it to happen in this way or so soon.

Is there anything that you wish your time at university could have prepared you for regarding going freelance?

With freelance work, there are lots of elements that you can be taught quite easily, such as how to register as self-employed, how to figure out taxes, and how to create invoices. But the things that I struggled with the most are things that you have to figure out yourself: how to manage your time, how to network with people, how to decide your rates of pay, how to find a good work-life balance… all of these things are really difficult to figure out, and they differ from person to person. I think there’s definitely more that theatre degrees should do to teach and prepare people for freelance work. Skills such as being able to create a website or market yourself on social media are so valuable to have.

A big thing that university doesn’t prepare you for is the slow burn once you’ve graduated. You have to start at the bottom again and work your way up the ladder. Everyone’s situation is different and a lot of it is down to luck and privilege. If you haven’t found a job straight out of university, or even several years after graduating, it’s never too late. It’s really important to not compare yourself to others because everyone’s journey is different. I think once you accept that, it becomes a lot easier to deal with.

You take on so many roles as a young creative. Do you have strategies in place to help avoid becoming overwhelmed?

It definitely takes time to learn what sort of structure suits you and how you best maintain that structure by yourself. Prior to lockdown there was a point where I was juggling working at a pub, producing a small comedy festival, writing a play, applying for jobs in the arts and also doing freelance photography and videography work. So I compartmentalize, which is, for me, the best way to manage lots of different projects at one time: marking out days and times when you’ll focus on just one thing, and one thing only. Something I’ve really struggled with is replying to people’s messages, because lack of structure can have a really negative impact on all aspects of your life, not just on work. I also never switch off from working – sometimes I’m up until 5am getting things done, which is extremely unhealthy… but putting in structures and being strict with yourself really helps you keep on top of things.

Have the events of 2020 made you think differently about your work and what you want to gain from it?

2020… what a fantastic year it’s been! I feel like this year has thrown everything into the air; everything that we thought was normal has just gone completely out the window. As things started to get bad earlier this year, I remember there being a lot of talk about how the arts could use this as an opportunity to scrap the old ways of working and emerge from the ashes a fairer industry to work in. But, if I’m honest, it seems like we’re headed in the complete opposite direction. It seems like there’s now going to be less provision, more instability, and more exclusivity. For me, while I was already focused on issues such as equality and representation, this has really shown me that things need to change, and that can’t be achieved by simply committing to things or sticking to quotas. The elitism, racism, ableism, nepotism, all of the gate-keeping that is so rife in our industry needs to be completely rejected and torn down by our generation. We can’t just assume that change will happen through the goodwill of those in power, because they’ve proved to us that they are not willing to change. They will fight to keep their oppressive structures in place, no matter what the cost. With that in mind, my goal isn’t just to be a producer and to create amazing work; it’s now more focused on creating radical spaces and systems that go against what we’ve come to accept as normal, and to approach anything I do with the view of tearing down that broken system. I used to think that success was measured by your title or your pay check. Now, for me it is measured by the positive change I can bring to people and the industry.

Pandemic aside, what do you think needs to change about the way that the creative arts serve young people?

The creative arts are so ridiculously inaccessible for young people in so many ways. When I was applying for jobs straight out of university, it seems like the only opportunities were unpaid internships or a small number of paid graduate schemes, which are always incredibly over-subscribed and impossible to get on to. If I did find a role I could apply for, they’d almost never let you know that you weren’t successful. Older people love to say ‘I could wallpaper my house with the amount of letters of rejection I received’, but we don’t even get the courtesy of a rejection anymore. For me, it speaks to the arrogance of organisations who feel that they don’t owe people that, particularly young people. I’m not sure why this has been normalised in the arts, but it’s something I’d like to see changed.

I also think there should be more opportunities for young people who don’t do degrees because universities are now run as businesses and have become completely inaccessible to people from certain backgrounds. There needs to be much clearer routes into the industry; there are so many closed doors that it’s impossible to navigate without support from someone who is already doing what you want to do.

Is there anything that you haven’t done yet that you’d love to do in the future?

I’d like to bridge the gap between theatre, film, and television. When I was applying for jobs earlier this year I made the decision that I wanted to start applying for runner and production assistant jobs on film and television sets, just to get an idea of whether that’s a career that I’d prefer to pursue. I was getting exhausted of getting nowhere in theatre, realising that there is no security and no money. But, I found that film and television is much the same, and if anything it’s more difficult to get into. Having said that, I do still want to try; I’ve always had a love for film and my childhood dream was always to be a film director. I also want to be able to move to London. I feel so stuck living in rural Essex because there’s just nothing going on. I want to be able to immerse myself in different kinds of art: fringe theatre, drag, comedy, music… and I just miss being around like-minded people. I want to see really terrible art just to be able to talk about it with people, because everything that you go and see you learn from. I miss that experience, especially with the cancellation of Edinburgh and other festivals. It really feels as though there is a hole in my identity; it’s made me appreciate my connection with live performance and other artistic people.

Finally, what piece of art have you engaged with recently that you think we should all know about?

I’ve got a few series that I can recommend. Firstly, The Fall: it’s so twisted and brilliant, and you’ve got Gillian Anderson in the mix there so what more could you want? I’ve also been watching Pure, which is about a woman who moved from Scotland to London and is dealing with intrusive sexual thoughts. It’s a great series; it really speaks to the hardships that young people face in terms of mental health, relationships, and getting on your feet in the creative industries. I’ve also got into RuPaul’s Drag Race a lot more through lockdown. That’s also something I want to do after lockdown is see more drag. I’d also love to produce drag shows… we’ll see what happens.

You can check out Malachy’s work at www.malachyluckie.co.uk

[johnboothus]

Why Its No Longer Politics as Usual in the Wine Business

As we approach one of the most contentious elections in recent memory, the politics of wine brands is taking on newly heightened importance. Now more than ever, it seems, consumers and trade buyers are viewing the actions of companies with increased scrutiny. Some report that they can no longer buy bottles without considering a brand’s politics.

One group of consumers that’s increasingly likely to do so are millennials. According to a research report from PR firm Weber Shandwick, “Half of Millennials (51 percent) say they would be more likely to buy from a company led by a CEO who speaks out on an issue they agree with.” In an industry where an owner or CEO’s name often appears on the product’s label, this is an especially important consideration. Of course, millennials are not the only age group to vote with their dollars, but the cohort’s influence is on the rise. Millennial spending in the U.S. will grow to $1.4 trillion in 2020, representing 30 percent of total retail sales, according to Accenture, an Ireland-based Fortune Global 500 professional services company.

The growing spending power of millennials combined with our politically charged reality could make some wine brands rethink their political practices. Those companies (and brand leaders) that do continue to make campaign contributions risk alienating their customer base and losing sales.

Why Wine Politics Matters

Wine Twitter was ignited two weeks ago after the American Association of Wine Economists (AAWE) shared lists of the wine industry’s “Top 20” contributors to President Trump, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren. The AAWE stated that, according to its interpretation of the data, the wine industry “overwhelmingly” supports President Trump. (The methods used to arrive at this conclusion have since drawn criticism.)

Amidst a backdrop of high unemployment, a struggling economy, and civil tensions across the nation, the Trump post alone sparked a days-long debate. Some commenters defended the listed wine industry members, citing their rights to make campaign contributions. Others jumped in to fight for the industry, saying that a list of 20 winery owners, distributor CEOs, and a magazine publisher did not represent the entire wine community. Many said they would no longer buy wines from brands whose owners or employees donated to Trump.

As the debate raged on, industry professionals took action. ���When that list came out, I was quite happy to see that in my shop, with 1,100 different placements, just three bottles had to go,” says Erin Palmer, owner of Oregon retailer The Wine Cellar.

Describing herself as a “total liberal,” Palmer says wine stores themselves are not the place for political debates. But retailers can practice politics when stocking their shelves, she says, adding, “I believe that every dollar you spend is a vote, so we try to represent our values with what’s on the shelf.”

Palmer isn’t the only retailer who plans to change their inventory because of the AAWE post. Darren Guillaume, owner of Hayward, Calif., wine store Doc’s Wine, says he understands why a brand might contribute for political influence. But Guillaume will not excuse anyone who’s donated to Trump because of the ongoing tariffs issue. “This is affecting my business,” he says. “I will not support any wine distributor or producer that supports Trump.”

How the Trade and Consumers Can Make Informed Decisions

Like retailers, sommeliers also hold significant influence over consumer purchasing. With that role comes a “responsibility,” says Master Sommelier June Rodil, partner at Houston-based restaurant group Goodnight Hospitality. “Rather than just saying ‘this juice is good,’ we’ve got to start asking more questions before we really stand up for a brand,” she says.

Rodil admits that this is no easy undertaking and says it can take years to build relationships with a brand. Many buyers may only come in contact with distributor representatives or sales managers, rather than the company’s leaders. In this scenario, it’s hard to get an accurate picture of a brand’s politics or values, Rodil says.

So how then can wine professionals make informed judgments?

A good first port of call is social media. In recent weeks, numerous brands have used platforms like Instagram to share statements about their values and to cite the actions they’re taking to create a more equitable society.

But these messages alone cannot always be taken at face value. Early last week, Oregon winery Domaine Serene shared an Instagram post supporting BIPOC communities and pledging to fight “systemic injustice.” The post appeared just days after Domaine Serene owner Grace Halsted featured in the AAWE list, showing a $50,000 donation toward President Trump’s election. Many Instagram users commented that there was a disparity between the statement and Halsted’s contribution, given President Trump’s well-documented history of racial bias.

Dozens of commenters lambasted the winery over Halsted’s donations, with one user writing: “Your contribution to Trump shows us what your values are. White words on a black background won’t change that.” Multiple users took to the comment section to make their own pledge: to cancel their membership to Domaine Serene’s wine club.

Another way consumers and trade can monitor brands’ values is to follow in the AAWE’s footsteps. The Federal Election Commission database is open to the public; anyone can use it to check if a winery owner has made political contributions to a candidate whose views and actions they deem problematic. But even this method is not entirely without flaws.

Russell Klenet is a Florida-based federal and state lobbyist who’s worked with the Distilled Spirits Council and the Wine Institute. Klenent warns against viewing all donations as being politically motivated and explains the point using a common scenario: A winery owner is approached by a distributor with significant influence over whether or not their products will get shelf space. The distributor says they’re hosting a fundraiser for a politician and asks the winery for their support. The winery can either turn them down, and risk losing shelf space, or write a check for a few thousand dollars. What should they do?

“You write the check,” Klenet says. “Honestly, that’s just business.” Then again, he adds, when a donation is made for $50,000 or above, “That’s no longer supporting someone’s business — that’s a whole different dynamic.”

But even donations of this magnitude may require further scrutiny. The third-highest contributor on the list of Trump contributors was Roger K. Bower, who donated a total $55,400 in 2016, per the AAWE data. At the time of the donation, Bower was the owner of California winery Westerly Wines. But in 2018, he sold that winery to Michael Speakman, who says he is “politically neutral.”

Still, Westerly has received online backlash because of the AAWE post. “People don’t care about Roger Bower,” Speakman says. “They see Westerly Wine [on the AAWE list] and they say ‘I’m not going to buy their wines anymore.’”

Why It’s No Longer “Business as Usual”

Regardless of whether Speakman was aware of Bower’s donations to Trump when he purchased Westerly Wines, he could not have foreseen the coming backlash. But there are lessons to be learned from his tale. Going forward, people buying businesses may wish to investigate the politics and donations of their sellers, prior to putting ink to paper.

Other business owners may think twice about continuing donations of any kind — even if it’s a “business” transaction toward a fundraiser. As soon as the donation is made, it becomes public knowledge. Any such transaction could see the winery land on a list similar to the AAWE’s top contributors to Trump, especially when five individuals on that list donated less than $3,500 each.

Those companies (and brand leaders) that do wish to continue making donations may wish to consider whether the political candidate they’re supporting contradicts their public-facing values. If that proves to be the case, they could receive significant pushback on social media — à la Domaine Serene — and a possible negative sales impact. In fact, California’s Cakebread Cellars found itself in a near-carbon copy situation, with Instagram users responding with criticism and calls to boycott.

All these scenarios present cautionary tales for wine brands and prove that trade buyers and consumers are watching. But both, in turn, must be careful to ensure that businesses don’t become victims of unwarranted criticism or “cancel culture.” In this highly politicized era, more due diligence is required on everyone’s part.

The article Why It’s No Longer Politics as Usual in the Wine Business appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/trump-politics-winery-donations/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/why-its-no-longer-politics-as-usual-in-the-wine-business

[isaiahrippinus]

Why It’s No Longer Politics as Usual in the Wine Business

As we approach one of the most contentious elections in recent memory, the politics of wine brands is taking on newly heightened importance. Now more than ever, it seems, consumers and trade buyers are viewing the actions of companies with increased scrutiny. Some report that they can no longer buy bottles without considering a brand’s politics.

One group of consumers that’s increasingly likely to do so are millennials. According to a research report from PR firm Weber Shandwick, “Half of Millennials (51 percent) say they would be more likely to buy from a company led by a CEO who speaks out on an issue they agree with.” In an industry where an owner or CEO’s name often appears on the product’s label, this is an especially important consideration. Of course, millennials are not the only age group to vote with their dollars, but the cohort’s influence is on the rise. Millennial spending in the U.S. will grow to $1.4 trillion in 2020, representing 30 percent of total retail sales, according to Accenture, an Ireland-based Fortune Global 500 professional services company.

The growing spending power of millennials combined with our politically charged reality could make some wine brands rethink their political practices. Those companies (and brand leaders) that do continue to make campaign contributions risk alienating their customer base and losing sales.

Why Wine Politics Matters

Wine Twitter was ignited two weeks ago after the American Association of Wine Economists (AAWE) shared lists of the wine industry’s “Top 20” contributors to President Trump, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren. The AAWE stated that, according to its interpretation of the data, the wine industry “overwhelmingly” supports President Trump. (The methods used to arrive at this conclusion have since drawn criticism.)

Amidst a backdrop of high unemployment, a struggling economy, and civil tensions across the nation, the Trump post alone sparked a days-long debate. Some commenters defended the listed wine industry members, citing their rights to make campaign contributions. Others jumped in to fight for the industry, saying that a list of 20 winery owners, distributor CEOs, and a magazine publisher did not represent the entire wine community. Many said they would no longer buy wines from brands whose owners or employees donated to Trump.

As the debate raged on, industry professionals took action. “When that list came out, I was quite happy to see that in my shop, with 1,100 different placements, just three bottles had to go,” says Erin Palmer, owner of Oregon retailer The Wine Cellar.

Describing herself as a “total liberal,” Palmer says wine stores themselves are not the place for political debates. But retailers can practice politics when stocking their shelves, she says, adding, “I believe that every dollar you spend is a vote, so we try to represent our values with what’s on the shelf.”

Palmer isn’t the only retailer who plans to change their inventory because of the AAWE post. Darren Guillaume, owner of Hayward, Calif., wine store Doc’s Wine, says he understands why a brand might contribute for political influence. But Guillaume will not excuse anyone who’s donated to Trump because of the ongoing tariffs issue. “This is affecting my business,” he says. “I will not support any wine distributor or producer that supports Trump.”

How the Trade and Consumers Can Make Informed Decisions

Like retailers, sommeliers also hold significant influence over consumer purchasing. With that role comes a “responsibility,” says Master Sommelier June Rodil, partner at Houston-based restaurant group Goodnight Hospitality. “Rather than just saying ‘this juice is good,’ we’ve got to start asking more questions before we really stand up for a brand,” she says.

Rodil admits that this is no easy undertaking and says it can take years to build relationships with a brand. Many buyers may only come in contact with distributor representatives or sales managers, rather than the company’s leaders. In this scenario, it’s hard to get an accurate picture of a brand’s politics or values, Rodil says.

So how then can wine professionals make informed judgments?

A good first port of call is social media. In recent weeks, numerous brands have used platforms like Instagram to share statements about their values and to cite the actions they’re taking to create a more equitable society.

But these messages alone cannot always be taken at face value. Early last week, Oregon winery Domaine Serene shared an Instagram post supporting BIPOC communities and pledging to fight “systemic injustice.” The post appeared just days after Domaine Serene owner Grace Halsted featured in the AAWE list, showing a $50,000 donation toward President Trump’s election. Many Instagram users commented that there was a disparity between the statement and Halsted’s contribution, given President Trump’s well-documented history of racial bias.

Dozens of commenters lambasted the winery over Halsted’s donations, with one user writing: “Your contribution to Trump shows us what your values are. White words on a black background won’t change that.” Multiple users took to the comment section to make their own pledge: to cancel their membership to Domaine Serene’s wine club.

Another way consumers and trade can monitor brands’ values is to follow in the AAWE’s footsteps. The Federal Election Commission database is open to the public; anyone can use it to check if a winery owner has made political contributions to a candidate whose views and actions they deem problematic. But even this method is not entirely without flaws.

Russell Klenet is a Florida-based federal and state lobbyist who’s worked with the Distilled Spirits Council and the Wine Institute. Klenent warns against viewing all donations as being politically motivated and explains the point using a common scenario: A winery owner is approached by a distributor with significant influence over whether or not their products will get shelf space. The distributor says they’re hosting a fundraiser for a politician and asks the winery for their support. The winery can either turn them down, and risk losing shelf space, or write a check for a few thousand dollars. What should they do?

“You write the check,” Klenet says. “Honestly, that’s just business.” Then again, he adds, when a donation is made for $50,000 or above, “That’s no longer supporting someone’s business — that’s a whole different dynamic.”

But even donations of this magnitude may require further scrutiny. The third-highest contributor on the list of Trump contributors was Roger K. Bower, who donated a total $55,400 in 2016, per the AAWE data. At the time of the donation, Bower was the owner of California winery Westerly Wines. But in 2018, he sold that winery to Michael Speakman, who says he is “politically neutral.”

Still, Westerly has received online backlash because of the AAWE post. “People don’t care about Roger Bower,” Speakman says. “They see Westerly Wine [on the AAWE list] and they say ‘I’m not going to buy their wines anymore.’”

Why It’s No Longer “Business as Usual”

Regardless of whether Speakman was aware of Bower’s donations to Trump when he purchased Westerly Wines, he could not have foreseen the coming backlash. But there are lessons to be learned from his tale. Going forward, people buying businesses may wish to investigate the politics and donations of their sellers, prior to putting ink to paper.

Other business owners may think twice about continuing donations of any kind — even if it’s a “business” transaction toward a fundraiser. As soon as the donation is made, it becomes public knowledge. Any such transaction could see the winery land on a list similar to the AAWE’s top contributors to Trump, especially when five individuals on that list donated less than $3,500 each.

Those companies (and brand leaders) that do wish to continue making donations may wish to consider whether the political candidate they’re supporting contradicts their public-facing values. If that proves to be the case, they could receive significant pushback on social media — à la Domaine Serene — and a possible negative sales impact. In fact, California’s Cakebread Cellars found itself in a near-carbon copy situation, with Instagram users responding with criticism and calls to boycott.

All these scenarios present cautionary tales for wine brands and prove that trade buyers and consumers are watching. But both, in turn, must be careful to ensure that businesses don’t become victims of unwarranted criticism or “cancel culture.” In this highly politicized era, more due diligence is required on everyone’s part.

The article Why It’s No Longer Politics as Usual in the Wine Business appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/trump-politics-winery-donations/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/621000731995045888

[peckhampeculiar]

This is not a drill

WORDS: EMMA FINAMORE; PHOTO: LIMA CHARLIE

From gaining the support of international music stars and getting meetings with cabinet ministers, to arrests and accusations of dangerous behaviour from members of the public, it’s fair to say Extinction Rebellion is making its mark.

Known as XR for short, the group describes itself as an international “non-violent civil disobedience activist movement”, which wants governments to declare a “climate and ecological emergency” and take immediate action to address the climate crisis.

In April the group “shut down” London for 10 whole days – blocking bridges and using peaceful, mass civil disobedience, resulting in more than 1,000 arrests.

In June, activists blocked traffic in New York, and chained themselves outside Angela Merkel’s chancellery in Berlin. In Paris, police used pepper spray to clear activists blocking a bridge over the Seine. In July, XR used brightly coloured boats to stop traffic in Cardiff, Glasgow, Bristol, Leeds and London.

All this activity has brought them a lot of attention, both negative and positive. When a hacker stole a cache of unreleased Radiohead recordings, instead of paying the demanded ransom, lead singer Thom Yorke released the music online and pledged all the proceeds to XR.

The group has gained meetings with people like Michael Gove – then secretary of state for the environment – but has also drawn criticism for blocking roads required for emergency services like ambulances, and in July more than 30 activists were charged with a range of public order offences in London. Planned drone activity over the summer – in response to proposals for a third runway at Heathrow – was cancelled after police warned those involved they could face life sentences and urged campaigners to reconsider.

Clare Farrell – one of XR’s founding members – is in it for the long haul though. Having been involved in activism since the early 2000s, the threat of arrest, for her, pales in comparison to the threat of climate change.

Having studied and worked in fashion, even setting up her own apparel brand in a Bussey Building studio, how did she come to this seemingly contrasting world?

In the early to mid 2000s Clare was part of the Space Hijackers, which she describes as a group of “anti-capitalist troublemakers”, parking tanks outside arms fairs and throwing parties on the Circle line. They were aligned with Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping – a radical performance group based in New York, focusing on mass consumerism – and other groups, with lots of focus on consumer culture and stemming people’s addiction to shopping.

So when Clare started working in fashion, she tried to do so sustainably. “I did a fashion degree and I wrote about the environment,” she says. “And everyone told me it was really boring and unimportant.” She wrote about how much water cotton needs to be manufactured, and what she says are “tens of thousands of people poisoned to death every year by the cotton industry”.

How did she square that anti-capitalist, anti mass consumerism, environmentally aware mindset with the fashion world? “Well, they [fashion and her activism concerns] kind of should be mutually exclusive, that’s why I’m not doing much with my brand – I’m a one-woman business so there’s a big deficit if you’re just not interested in selling stuff. I feel like I like developing a good product but I couldn’t give a sh*t about selling it.”

Clare talks about the difficulty of working consciously in fashion, saying big brands don’t follow through on promises while small brands suffer from a lack of scale, so she bounced between the two for a while before deciding that “green capitalism is absolute sh*te, people need to get a grip because everybody is going to die and it’s all been a joke. It’s not interesting to make organic T-shirts if you’re expecting an uninhabitable planet by the end of the century.”

Then in 2017 she met one of the other main founding members of XR, Roger Hallam – a PhD researcher at King’s College London who was on a hunger strike to demand the university stopped investing in fossil fuels and who had been testing out various civil disobedience tactics for years. He went two weeks without food, after which King’s agreed to divest from fossil fuels by 2022 and to be a fully carbon neutral institution by 2025.

Inspired, Clare went along to a meeting. “I went thinking, ‘Loads of people will be there because it’s really interesting’, but there were like, five people,” she laughs. She started blocking roads, testing out tactics like Roger had done, as part of a campaign called Stop Killing Londoners, calling for radical action on air pollution.

“Londoners breathe illegal air,” she says. “They have done for about a decade. It’s obscene, I have total disgust for the way public health and the environment is viewed by politicians and the way it doesn’t meet. There are 9,500 deaths in this city every year linked to air pollution. And that’s not part of the climate conversation.”

What she says definitely seems to be backed up by research. In June, Public Health England reported that the rate of fatalities linked to breathing in killer particles rose from 6.4 per cent to 6.5 per cent in 2017. That followed a jump from 5.6 per cent to 6.4 per cent the previous year, suggesting that efforts to clean up particulate pollution are having little impact. Before that the death rate had been falling since 2010.

Clare says angrily: “If someone drives a car into someone on a pavement outside the Houses of Parliament, how many thousands of pounds are spent erecting a barrier overnight and keeping it there, and debating rerouting roads and changing the traffic system? And yet for the sake of nearly 10,000 deaths a year they won’t put any effort in at all?

“Politicians say the public just accept those deaths as inevitable, as part of ‘progress’. I don’t think they f***ing do! People just feel like they can’t do anything about it.”

Hoping to draw attention to their cause, Stop Killing Londoners organised a series of what Clare describes as “little experiments”, testing how long it was possible to block a road before being arrested.

Then members of the group began pushing their civil disobedience further, getting sentenced for spraying chalk spray on City Hall, for example – then breaking bail and going back to do it again and again – or going on hunger strikes in prison and writing to Sadiq Khan from inside.

“In some ways it’s really not cool to say, ‘Get arrested and that’ll fix it’, because it won’t fix it, at least on its own,” acknowledges Clare. “But when you say, ‘There’s no way I’m willing to stand by and watch you do this without doing anything, and you can chuck me in jail if you want’, it shows your commitment, and it gets you the sympathy of other people, who realise the seriousness of the situation and that we’re willing to make a very serious sacrifice for it.”

Clare says non-violent struggles are about winning hearts and minds, winning the intellectual and emotional argument. “You can’t beat the state on the ground,” she explains. “If they send the army in, what are you going to do? You won’t win a fight that way. And what we’ve already done is to be able to shift the language, that’s a battle in itself.”

For XR, the term “climate change” is problematic, only helpful to states and big business. “If you term it like that it sounds somehow less alarming, like ‘Maybe we didn’t do it ourselves’. And that’s been very clearly steered while the public have been confused and all the fake science and bullsh*t campaigns and the PR and the billions that the fossil fuel industry has spent on PR – all of that, swinging the language round.”

But now “climate emergency” is entering the public vernacular, which for activists is a far more fitting term. It’s no coincidence that this shift has taken place since the establishment of XR in May 2018, after activist network Rising Up committed to working together on environmental issues and ran a series of talks across the UK signing people up to support them in taking action.

The light touch civil disobedience tested out by people like Clare and Roger Hallam – such as spraying something on a wall then sitting next to it waiting to be arrested – is the bedrock of their work. But to make an impact, it’s needed en masse. How have XR persuaded so many people to stand with them in acts like this? For Clare, it’s all about the national talks the group ran.

“If you’re going to ask someone to go and break the law with you, you’re not going to get them to say that on Facebook. You have to talk to them and they have to feel that they trust you and that it’s going to be worth doing. In the world of activism and organising, people overstate the importance of online. It doesn’t help you get proper support, people who are going to put their body on the line. That involves real time and real connection.”

Clare’s well aware that this isn’t something everyone can commit to, regardless of how concerned they are about the environment. “It’s not possible for everybody to engage in that act,” she says. “There’s always been a conversation among the Rising Up community about recognising privilege, but also about using it.

“A lot of criticism we’ve received says, ‘Well not everyone can go and get arrested’, because it’s more difficult for them, or because they’ll be treated really brutally because they’re not white, or who can take time off work, or who can have a bad DBS check. And it’s all true, it’s not fair. But it’s not fair right now, and it’s going to get a lot less fair really quickly. The people who can’t afford to take the time off work are going to have to face a doubling in food pricing in about 10 years.”

She says that if you’re lucky enough to be able to afford to make sacrifices, then you should consider it, and that the group acknowledges that there’s work to be done to help those who feel excluded by their brand of action.

“There are people like carers at home who were saying, ‘I can’t come out on the streets, how can I be part of this?’ People from communities of colour who said, ‘We think it’s too dangerous for us to do this but how can we be a part of it?’ We need to get our heads together in the coming months to think more and more about how that looks because lots of people want to recognise themselves as in rebellion but are not able to do some of the things that we’ve been doing.”

Clare also talks about working to persuade industries and sectors like culture, teaching, music and construction to declare an emergency.

“Concrete is also killing you,” she says. “It’s got a huge carbon footprint and doesn’t stop, and it never disappears. Massive carbon emissions from the concrete industry hardly ever get scrutinised, but it’s really, really not good. And its use just goes up and up.” Six XR activists were arrested in July after chaining themselves to the entrances of a concrete factory in east London.

Despite the huge task ahead of XR, Clare also says it’s a magical feeling to be part of building something so big that it takes on a life of its own. “You think, ‘There used to be 10 of us on Marylebone Road feeling no one’s paying us any attention.’”

Well, they are now.

[gocchisama]

Thoughts on the love ban rule (恋愛禁止条例)

In her recent Radio program, Koike Minami from Keyakizaka46 mentioned a paper adressed to all members, officially banning any relationship during their idol activity. It is also known as the Renai Kinshi Jourei, the love ban rule. To allow or forbid this rule have teared apart the fandom for many years, and the ambiguous stand of Akimoto Yasushi (stating there wasn’t such thing as love ban rule) doesn’t help to clear things up. But the issue regarding this rule goes beyond it’s own existence. This is an eternal debate between those who argue we can’t own idols as they are humans with feelings, against those who think it is necessary to preserve their image. To sum things up, what we debate for is our conception of an idol. Through this write up, i will attempt to list all legit arguments from both side so you can make your own opinion on that matter.

“Sasshi scandal was the most talked topic at the time, even more than Acchan graduation”

First, a little bit of history. The love ban rule is much more older than AKB itself. In 1997, Nakazawa Yuko, leader of Morning musume at the time, stated that in their contract, they were forbid to have boyfriend or marry. Ten years later, Kashiwagi Yuki expressed the same statement, that they had to sign a paper in which they pledge to not be in a relationship. What is the purpose of the love ban rule? Simply speaking, it helps the idea of an idol “pure and innocent”, completely devoted to the fans. Management is afraid that the fan significantly decrease his dedication to buy goods and ticket to see his favourite member if she’s in a relationship.

But Let’s take an example of other pop culture. Justin Bieber is a singer, with 99.9% of female fanbase. He works a lot on his image, yet he dated many other celebrities like Selena Gomez. He’s directly concerned with appearance, but his staff allow him to date. In the super strict Kpop industry, even though entertainment companies are very discrete about it, they often acknowledge a relationship when they are revealed, and not opposing them (Exo Kai and F(x) Crystal for example). The question is, why is it allowed in Occidental and Oriental countries like USA and Korea and not in japan? Especially the case of idols.

1st hypothesis, It’s about culture. USA have build their civilization on freedom, and it’s quite hard to “forbid” someone to love, especially someone as popular as Justin bieber. Management strategy to keep hardcore fans would backfire at them, being blamed for pressuring the artist. In Kpop It might depend of the age and experience of the artist. When management knows the artist fanbase is mature enough to accept, they lift the ban. But if the trainee has just debuted with the group, it’s better to not create unnecessary waves that would be an hindrance to the group promotion. Japan has a huge history of hierarchy between genre, family often assimilated with a father who work, and a mother who stay at home to raise the children. Sexism is still rooted in society as it is largely accepted to have gravure photoshoot of idols (often very young), but also promote the girls as cute and innocent. Unconsciously, Japan paradoxal society still allow to reduce a woman basic right in order to preserve a certain idea of what an idol should be.

2st hypothesis, we can say it’s the fan fault for being unrealistic about the concept of an idol. Before being an idol, she is an human being. You can’t mix up reasoning with feelings, as one is led by the brain, the other by the heart. Also, if the idol you support is being happy with someone else, shouldn’t you be happy for her own happiness? It’s not like you’re being her fan in order to date her in the future. You can also be a fan of someone without being physically attracted to her. Like many hardcore metal teenagers adoring metallica. A fan’s love, is different. Something more personal, but loving someone as a 17 years is different from loving at 26, and 40, etc. A teenager should live to the fullest.

“Minegishi scandal blow out to international proportion, wrongly the symbol of Japanese excess”

Not long ago, a company sued a girl for “breach of contract” blaming her for her idol group failure in the market, because she was dating one of her fans. The young girl retorted that i was never mentioned she couldn’t date anyone, even though it was “professionaly” obvious to avoid this situation. The result of the court was that indeed the girl was wrong for not taking into account that it would hurt the group image, but since she dated her boyfriend without the intent to harm the company, she was exempt to pay fee for the prejudice caused.

There’s a big difference between european and asian culture. The first is a lot about freedom (artist love life is his privacy) but asian point of view is about responsability. Japanese are often serious in their work (sometimes they die from it). Even though you have the freedom to come with T-shirt and jeans, you have the responsability to look decent for an interview, which means wearing a suit. Otherwise we don’t take you seriously. In entertainment, you shouldn’t behave in a way that would be a threat to your company or group image. But this rule can’t be applied to everyone because each person has a different situation.

Let’s take the example of Watanabe Mayu. She became very popular, very fast, in a young age. Not only we can assume she didn’t have a lot of free time, but having a relationship exposed would have create an uproar on tabloid. She was very serious about her image because she was aware an incident would break her momemtum. On the other hand, when you’re unknown, like a KKS, it hasn’t the same impact at all, and you have much more free time than a popular member. (and probably the reason why Sasshi’s scandal was exposed only when she became popular).

The problem with micchan scandal, is that not only she was a popular member, but also the captain of a team. What foreigners don’t know, is that in japanese culture, people often shave their head after admitting being in the wrong. Micchan obviously shaved her head on her own will. But foreign newspaper, with little care of details, implied it was a sanction done by management (the video was published on AKB official youtube channel after all). The malicious gossip spread and it was a huge blow to idol entertainment. It doesn’t matter what was the real reason, and the damage was done.

“Shunkan bunshun is often involved in many scandals related to idols”

In fact, it isn’t really about the fan behavior toward her idol that define the existence of the love ban rule. In the case of Kashiwagi Yuki scandal with NEWS’s Tegoshi, it was up to her fanbase to decide if they keep following her or not. In the case of Matsumura Sayuri scandal (above), it turned out more bitter because Nogizaka has a strong image of elegant, calm idols compared to the 48group. Image is not only related to fan, as big companies (a potential source of revenue for popular idol group), won’t choose girls who are involved in a negative image to endorse their products. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, it’s how those scandal divert from the expected result. Do you remember when Kouhaku utagassen chose HKT instead of Nogizaka in 2014? We will never know, but it’s possible that Nogi appearance was cancelled because of this negative coverage.

Why is management not willing to make a decision, always being ambiguous about it? Because both choice have a negative impact. If you make the love ban rule official, you are seen as a bad company who suppress a girl basic right, and if you officially allow the girls to date, there’s no turning back, and fan’s reaction is unsure. The best alternative is “not to get caught” or “adapt to the situation” rule. In Yukirin’s case, management decided to let it through, because she was too important to the group. Same with Sasshi. We can’t say the same for Murashige Anna, who got almost perma-ban from HKT senbatsu, or Owada Nana and Nishino Miki who soon graduated after being seen at 2AM in a game court with some ex Johnny’s (again).

The love ban rule can be seen as something not coming from fans to their idol, but a rule of self discipline (coming from within), like how you are committed to your work. When you date someone perfectly aware of a bad coverage, you’re taking a risk. This self discipline increase as you became popular. When someone try to get best of both worlds, it can be seen as recklessness toward your job. After all, Kikuchi Ayaka or Komori Mika graduated AKB to get married. When someone get outside of the idol field, fans are much more keen to be happy for their idol happiness. Because they are past their idol phase. Jurina once said “i will date after being an idol. But for the moment, i want to focus on my work”.

“Yukirin votes dropped up to 70 000 votes for the 8th Sousenkyo. Note that 7th Sousenkyo was her fanbase last push to put her 1th, with a 60k increase too ”

To the question if the love ban rule is something fair or unfair, it’s hard to decide because feelings are involved with it. I personally hadn’t my oshimen being involved in a scandal, so i don’t know how i would react. However, what i believe is, for japanese, that the renai kinshi jourei is a self inflicted rule. It just depends on how serious you are toward the job of idol. If you don’t accept to have your love life put on hold, just don’t be an idol. It’s even more true that an idol not only care for her image, but is also responsible for the group image. When people quote Sasshi’s case that scandal doesn’t influence the popularity of a member, keep in mind that it happened when she was a KKS, barely being an extra in Everyday Kachuusa MV. Taking such a risk to date someone when she’s 4th in sousenkyo, her answer would have been completely different.

My humble opinion : If my oshimen was caught in a scandal, i would probably be disappointed. Not because i thought of her as pure and innocent (let’s be real, women also have libido, and love is something wonderful), but because she’s taking a risk to damage her or the group reputation. She’s aware of the damage, and she took it anyway. To be responsible, is a form of respect.

In the future, we probably will see a change of mindset, with a more accepting industry toward idols. Because, there’s no proper definition of an idol.

[myopinionisntneededbutohwell]

I’m not one for canceling but...some of y’all have to go...

H&M has mastered the art of “Black outrage” as free promotion. You know the saying “ You’re only as relevant as the last time you were talked about” ? Oh yeah they most definitely go by this business model. How can one company come under fire for racial insensitivity not once, but twice in under two years? It’s simple, market something racially insensitive, wait for the public outcry, then issue a crappy apology after pulling the image from the website. Now for sure H&M understands that the internet is forever and that even if they delete the image people will always remember the controversy. In the ever expanding world of fast fashion, among the Fashionnova and Missguided, it is imperative for H&M  that they remain in the public's attention even at the cost of their reputation.  

There’s absolutely NO WAY that a company such as H&M would not understand the implications of putting the black model in a hoodie worded “ Coolest monkey in the jungle”...how removed from reality would they have to be? Sometimes the question has to be asked, when has the line been crossed? I mean even G-eazy (one of the most controversial rappers today) had to cut ties with H&M, this was a bad look. All for what? A tiny bit of clout? A few more sales on now HEAVILY discounted items? H&M claims that  they were hiring a diversity leader. The company has been in hot water for various accounts of racial insensitivity, In Canadian stores in 2013 they sold faux-feather headdresses which resulted in backlash from Canada’s aboriginal peoples. In November of 2015 H&M South Africa  came under fire after people noticed they rarely posted black models. The company’s response? “H&M’s marketing has a major impact and it is essential for us to convey a positive image. We want our marketing to show our fashion in an inspiring way, to convey a positive feeling.”

Let that sink in, since when has racial insensitivity and cultural appropriation been a valid business model? H&M was already trash for having low paid workers in horrible working conditions, but their continued disregard of People of color is inexcusable. 

Hey I’m not one for picking on the underdogs meaning stores you’ll find in a local mall-  so I guess it’s time I keep the same energy for the big guys. Gucci, Prada and Chanel. These are way worse than the previous mentioned business H&M was a micro aggression while these guys are just BOOM in your face disrespect. A noose around a model's neck? Check. Blackface caricatures? You got it. Asian model eating Italian food using chopsticks? Hell yeah! Over exaggerated baby hairs on white models with no actual baby hairs? Yup. At a certain point we have to ask ourselves...when has high fashion gone too far? How is romanticizing suicide/lynching, blackface and cultural appropriation ok? And did they really think anyone was gonna buy it? I give credit to the fast fashion bands, while their marketing may be insensitive, their clothing itself isn’t the problem. High fashion brands seemed to have noticed the negative attention (any attention is good attention to them) that fast fashion brands were receiving and must have taken a page out of the same book. Question is...who are they truly marketing to? At least with the monkey hoodie a white, Latino, Asian hell even a black kid could wear it without people questioning the item. But a sweater with a noose on it? My black ass would never. And to be honest these brands don’t actually care, the average Joe working a 9- 5 making $11 minimum wage (at least in NYC) would not be buying these expense pieces from Gucci or Prada. And the rich who surely could afford these items probably wouldn’t buy them in fear of cancel culture. Again it's just using outrage as free publicity. We all know Gucci's clothes are boring, no one cares about their fashion shows. But doing insensitive things like these sure as hell gets everyone talking. And their response you asked? Hiring a new global head of diversity, equity and inclusion in order to "create a more inclusive and equitable workplace and increase workforce diversity." Aka… nothing’s gonna change. Expect some more cultural appreciation or idolizes another form of suicide in their 2021 collections. 

[niamhmedialogs]

Online Value Messages: Does the Internet make us nice or mean?

How to Ruin someone’s life: cancel culture

I think we can all admit sometimes we enjoy being angry. One thing is for sure the internet LOVES to be angry at someone or something. If you think about it, there is never really a time where someone isn’t ranting on twitter or a hashtag is trending. This somewhat hate-driven movement on social media is a weird way of finding a community to all ban together. It's a security blanket to many people, taking anger out onto someone else online to feel better about yourself. As mentioned before, the internet is a platform where anyone can say anything. This can be for the worse as everything you've made public is now accessible. This accessibility became a serious issue for celebrities because now everything they chose to post online can potentially ruin their career. Let's take into consideration Kevin Hart, well-known comedian, He was chosen to host the Oscars in 2019. After this was announced, old homophobic tweets that Hart had made resurfaced online. The tweets disturbed many as displayed his thoughts towards potentially having a gay son. Hart said he would break a dollhouse over his head if he saw him playing with it. Homophobic tweets like this continued from 2009 to 2011, before he became a well-known celebrity. Kevin Hart did not realize the severity those old posts were to his career. When these tweets came back into the light before the Oscar nominations. Hart received a wave of hate and criticism from the LGBTQ+ community. After apologizing Kevin Hart stepped down from hosting the Oscars.

I would never excuse the offensive and unsettling things Hart tweeted, but I feel towards the fact these tweets will be pegged on him for the rest of his career. He said he would never repeat those jokes today and posted multiple apologies on twitter before the nominations. The apologies don’t matter to the public, he said those things and those tweets will be attached to him as long as his career. They will unfortunately resurface and resurface whenever someone decides to bring them up again. This has happened to countless celebrities, YouTubers, influencers, something they said years ago is pulled up and the internet goes crazy. Hashtags, drama videos, articles, spread everywhere. My question is, ‘What is the point?’ If they have grown as people, should they still be ridiculed for their actions? This cancel culture is very scary for celebrities as something said on the internet can ruin their whole career. In this world of social media shaming, it’s one strike and you’re out. Cancel culture does not only affect celebrities, but independent businesses are also impacted by the internet. Think about the last time you were curious about a new restaurant, you probably searched up the reviews. If you saw a super negative review, the likelihood is you will probably choose another place to eat. That comment someone else chose to post online could potentially ruin a business. Reviews online are essentially permanent and it's hard to get yourself back on your feet. The fact that everything a business has worked for can be taken away from them by strangers online is terrifying. Even Barack Obama himself, weighed in on the cancel culture phenomenon, describing it as an overly judgmental approach to activism that does little to bring about change. This part of social media needs to learn forgiveness. People should apologize for their actions but should not be attacked for mistakes they made years ago. We must recognize and accept people grow. Cancel culture allowed us to understand the power of people’s voices banned together, imagine the impact if we strived for actual global change rather than canceling Kevin Hart.

(note: I really dislike Kevin Hart as a comedian, I just used him to prove my point.)

https://medium.com/the-ascent/has-social-media-made-us-mean-2778aceddf67

https://www.billboard.com/articles/events/oscars/8492982/kevin-hart-oscar-hosting-controversy-timeline

[tripstations]

How American Airlines Ruined My Trip To Croatia

Anyone who has flown American lately, or owns stock in the company, has noticed the clear negative trend of poor operational performance, inadequate customer service and less than stellar elite recognition.

Or as Ben wrote earlier this year:

“American hasn’t been in a great position lately. Simply put, their shareholders, employees, and customers, aren’t happy.”

Well, earlier this month, it was my turn in the hopper and American delivered on every single negative expectation as it successfully left me empty handed without a way to get to Croatia. I’ll be the first to admit I’m still pretty raw about this situation and this is a longer rant than I’d prefer. So, if that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, feel free to skip this post and move along.

But if you like American Airlines related schadenfreude, and are up for ~1,900 words of me being given the runaround, let’s get into this…

American/Hyatt status challenge seemed like a good idea

I should start by saying Tiffany warned me this whole trip was a stupid idea because Executive Platinum status isn’t worth what it used to be. But, I’m an American hub captive in Phoenix and I expect a decent amount of business travel next year. With all of the operational issues American has had, my hope was elite status would help solve the inevitable problems I’d experience flying them.

Yes, that thought process is insane and gross. I don’t like the idea I would essentially reward an airline for operational issues by flying them more for status, but let’s leave that part for another day. This post is already too long.

So, when I received a status challenge from American’s partnership with Hyatt, I started looking for premium cabin partner fares that would help me hit the 5,000 EQD and 35,000 EQM requirement for Executive Platinum status.

Dubrovnik looked lovely when Tiffany visited, why not go check it out and earn status? Because American

In late May, I saw a roundtrip fare from Honolulu to Durbrovnik that ticketed into Iberia’s “I” fare bucket. It wasn’t the cheapest option, but it worked with my calendar, was a place I wanted to visit, and was enough miles to qualify. I booked the trip and then booked a positioning flight from PHX to HNL on American using British Airways Avios.

The delays start

This adventure started with the decision to board the plane for my flight to HNL despite knowing there was an issue with the APU.

I don’t know how many of you have boarded a plane in Phoenix in August without operational air conditioning. But, when asked to make an obvious choice between air conditioned terminal and warm airplane, American’s crack team must have really needed an answer to “how ripe can the body odor in this plane possibly get?” because we boarded.

Our first announcement there was a problem was about 25 minutes after boarding when the pilot told us maintenance was en route. This was soon followed by a delayed flight notification from American. And as anyone who knows how that goes with American, it wouldn’t be the last of our rolling delay notifications.

In fact, it was just the first of 10 notifications before they finally cancelled the flight when the pilot and crew timed out:

As a quick aside, the flight attendants deserve a lot of credit because they were working very hard to provide cold water for passengers on a very warm plane. And I’m convinced they were responsible for the decision to get passengers into the air conditioned terminal. They were the only positive part of this entire ordeal. And I bet they would have provided an exceptional service to Honolulu.

The delays continue and American really starts to fail

As you can see above, the delays rolled on throughout the afternoon. What was originally a 6 hour window to catch my flight out of HNL was rapidly closing.

I brought this to the attention of the Admirals Club staff who had no idea how to deal with the situation because I had an Avios award ticket and a separate Iberia ticket out of HNL. They suggested I call the elite desk to see what options they might have.

Sadly the phone agent and supervisor I spoke with held steady on the fact they could not reaccommodate me because American didn’t own either ticket. The supervisor conceded she wouldn’t like this response either. But, she insisted she had no way of fixing the trip.

I asked her to look at the oneworld protections for this situation and she stuck to her line that this wasn’t an American problem.

She did offer the exceptionally unhelpful idea of going to KOA or OGG while simultaneously acknowledging I’d still miss my flight leaving HNL. I felt like I was living this scene from Tommy Boy:

I checked in with Tiffany who confirmed American has policies for these situations and they should be able to rebook me. Good, I’m not crazy here.

Maybe American’s Twitter team can help

I turned to American’s Twitter team hoping I’d get a better result and better-informed staff. Again, that wasn’t the case. Here’s a sample of the wrong information I received via DMs.

I reached out to other well-informed travelers for advice

The well-respected American guru @xJonNYC confirmed AA should fix this:

from all I know on the subject (which certainly isn’t everything, necessarily,) you got screwed. Not uncommon for AA’s agents to not know about/offer this policy, but– again, based on all I know on the subject– you should have been protected for sure.

— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) August 15, 2019

Gary at View from the Wing said the same:

you need to speak to someone else, metaphorically hang up/call back. “oneworld reaccommodation policy” not all agents know it

— gary leff (@garyleff) August 16, 2019

Finally a breakthrough…I thought…wrongly

I’d previously referenced oneworld protections or a oneworld policy, but using the phrase Gary provided and sending a link to Gary’s post on the subject finally got a response that AA wanted to “take a closer look at this.” I was finally hopeful for the first time.

They followed up asking if I was in HNL or PHX and then things went sideways, again. Because American.

Now they insisted the only way to reaccommodate me was a very indirect routing that included the legs to and from Hawaii because “Both tickets may be changed but the origin and destination of each ticket must remain the same.”

But, that’s not what the policy says:

“Customers should be treated as through ticketed customers. In the event of a disruption on the originating ticket, the carrier responsible for the disruption will be required to reroute the customer to their final destination.”

Better yet, all of this indirect flying combined with the overnight layovers they created meant American’s proposed itinerary would put me into Dubrovnik a day after I was due to begin my journey home. Their new solution would leave me stuck in Croatia without a ticket home. Not ideal.

It took two attempts to explain this (the second one had big red circles and arrows on my itinerary pointing out my return date because I was running out of time and patience). And in typical American fashion, they didn’t own any bit of it.

They’d had enough of me and decided to move on. I, on the other hand, realized there was absolutely no way Iberia was going to refund me for American’s operational failure. It was official: I was screwed and this trip wasn’t happening.

What can I do now?

I had really been looking forward to visiting Dubrovnik, but American had other ideas

I couldn’t travel because American won’t fix their error. I can’t get a refund because Iberia won’t own American’s failure (and shouldn’t have to). So, what’s next?

I realized I’d already given an inordinate amount of time and energy to this:

I’d bitched and moaned for two days to anyone near me. A friend gave me the “Sir, this is a Wendy’s” response when I started complaining around him for the third time. And I’d annoyed the hell out of my wife by moping around the house.

So, it was time to move forward. I wrote to American suggesting they owned this failure from start to finish. I’d not only end up with out of pocket losses on the Iberia ticket but I’d also have other non-refundable trip related expenses.

I wasn’t delusional enough to think they’d compensate me for any of those costs. But, I considered the original purpose of this trip, which was to earn status. Surely, this was a situation where American could honor the original routing credit for the ticket and provide the EQDs and EQMs I would have earned had they not screwed up my trip.

It wouldn’t cost them a thing but would provide some goodwill.

Big shock: they said NO!

Instead they gave me 15,000 redeemable miles and an automated response. And when I complained that was insufficient given the situation, they conceded I was right and gave me another 10,000 redeemable miles.

When you factor in what I paid for my original ticket, I’m fairly certain I just got the worst deal ever for purchased miles. Maybe there’s a trophy for that?

In the end, the real lesson here is the fact American is not only a hot mess operationally, they’ve also gotten worse with the recovery. You can’t count on them to make things right for customers. Instead of doing more for customers who are impacted by their operational failures, they’re actually doing less. @xJonNYC pointed out how counterintuitive this is:

with their incredibly high cancellation rate as of late, one would think/hope @americanair would be even -more- accommodating than the actual policy even. #nAAivethinking

— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) August 15, 2019

It’s no wonder why the airline has stopped pretending “great is what we’re going for.”

This is a big picture problem for American

I legitimately feel bad for AA staff because they are constantly put in a position where they aren’t given the tools to fix obvious problems. Providing poor experiences has been normalized and American needs real help righting this ship. American has a culture of letting customers down. And many of the employees I dealt with acknowledge as much as they denied my suggestions to fix this mess.

Unfortunately, it does not appear to be an issue the current management is interested in fixing.

So, here I am a few thousand dollars poorer. I now know I should have listened to Tiffany in the first place and skipped this silly status run idea. And I’ll likely follow her advice to book connecting flights with Delta when I’m flying across the country next year. As she said before any of this started, I’ll get home faster anyway since AA will be delayed.

And speaking of Tiffany, I owe her, JonNYC and Gary at View from the Wing a big thank you for helping as I tried to get this trip back on track. It didn’t work, but that was not from a lack of good advice on their end.

Bottom line

This whole situation was a mess:

For nearly 48 hours, AA agents failed to reaccommodate me when it would have still been very easy to save my trip. I made multiple attempts with the AA twitter team, phone agents, a supervisor and Admirals Club staff and nobody could or would help. Undertrained and misinformed staff made it impossible to get what I paid for. And when AA agents finally recognized their error, the proposed fix incorrectly required me to fly to HNL because of a new made up policy. They suggested an itinerary, which had me arriving in Dubrovnik a day after I was scheduled to leave. And when this obvious problem was pointed out, American finally threw in the towel and gave up altogether.

American owns many failures here. The initial mechanical failure, the 48 hours of ignoring the oneworld reaccommodation policy, the made up requirement to have indirect routing via HNL, and the overall lack of interest in finding a solution.

The most frustrating thing about this situation is even when it was clear my trip wouldn’t happen, they refused to provide the original routing credit and then falsely characterized it all as “an unused ticket” when things “didn’t go smoothly.”

But, I guess I should be grateful they were nice enough to give me Iberia’s mailing address in Madrid. I’m sure writing to them would be a productive use of my time.

The post How American Airlines Ruined My Trip To Croatia appeared first on Tripstations.

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16 nice things we've seen on the internet in 2018 so far

We're halfway through 2018 and it's safe to say the internet's already had some serious ups and downs. 

If you reflect on the year thus far, your mind might wander to its low points, like when YouTuber Logan Paul filmed a dead body in Aokighara, known informally as a suicide forest in Japan, and uploaded the video online. Or maybe your mind jumps to the time Roseanne Barr made an extremely racist remark on Twitter.

Heck, perhaps you've blocked those cringe-worthy moments out because you’re too busy watching President Donald Trump spend his days angrily tweeting into the abyss. But despite all the bad the internet has offered us in 2018, it's had its fair share of good moments, too.

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From hilarious children and adorable animal videos, to impressive memes and chill celebrity interactions, the internet has given us a lot to smile about this year.

Here are 16 things to remind you that the internet isn't always an absolutely terrible place to spend time.

1. Lisa Frank's social media game

Looking back at social media in 2018, one unlikely hero managed to consistently deliver fresh, peppy, colorful content. That hero is Lisa Frank.

The beloved brand that ruled your childhood is over here absolutely slaying the social game — sharing relatable AF memes, cheerful animal graphics, and rainbows galore on Facebook and Instagram on a near-daily basis. If you're looking for a heavy dose of positivity, some Monday inspiration, or an unexpected laugh, Lisa Frank’s got you covered.

How’s your Monday going? #mondaymood #lisafrank #sweettooth ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

A post shared by Lisa Frank (@lisa_frank) on Jun 11, 2018 at 3:28pm PDT

2. Will Smith's Instagram account

Though the world welcomed Will Smith to Instagram in December 2017, the actor and super-cool dad really hit his social media stride in the new year. 

Smith gives us everything we could ever want in a celebrity Instagram account — he serves up laughs, gives us looks into his personal life, posts those Fresh Prince of Bel-Air throwbacks we all crave, and shares photos with his family members and famous friends. We are barely worthy of your content, Will, but we're glad you're here.

I’ma keep it 💯 wit’ y’all... I Hurt Myself doin’ that Champeta Move.

A post shared by Will Smith (@willsmith) on May 9, 2018 at 7:07am PDT

3. Kids finding out they were going to see Black Panther

Since its release, Black Panther has shattered box office records and inspired tons of memes, but we're not sure anything about the franchise will ever be able to top this video of Atlanta middle school students learning they'd be going to see the film.

In one of the nicest feel-good clips out there, Wade King — teacher and director of curriculum and instruction at Ron Clark Academy — captured video of students reacting to the news.

The students just found out we are all going to see BLACK PANTHER! We will have a day of cultural classes, African dancers, historical lessons and then we will all go see the film! Turn up!!!! @ronclarkacademy @chadwickboseman #tlhanna pic.twitter.com/oUhWse5ghr

— Wade King (@WadeKing7) February 2, 2018

Is this not one the purest things you've ever seen? Want more? No problem. The school's founder Ron Clark tweeted another video.

4. The #M'BakuChallenge

Black Panther had such an impact in online communities that it wouldn't be right to simply highlight one glorious Wakanda-related internet moment. Behold: The M'Baku Challenge — a delightful trend that called on people to recreate some of the most iconic lines from Jabari tribe leader M'Baku (played by Winston Duke).

Many Black Panther fans made admirable efforts, but 7-year-old Jordan's rendition was so superb that even Michael B. Jordan showed him some love.

A post shared by Brittnilutherqueenjr✊🏾 (@badgyalbribri) on Mar 4, 2018 at 5:31pm PST

5. Inspiring Twitter thread of women lifting each other up

It's an absolutely beautiful sight when an overwhelming amount of positivity is born from a single act of negativity. That's what happened in May when Twitter user @lewisbcfc74 claimed to be "sick of" seeing girls complimenting each other on Instagram.

Sick of going through insta and seeing girls commenting on other girls pictures 'look at u!!😭' and 'have you seen yourself😍' grow up man you don't even know each other

— Lewis (@lewisbcfc74) May 17, 2018

"Sick of going through Insta and seeing girls commenting on other girls pictures 'look at u!! and 'have you seen yourself’ grow up man you don't even know each other," he wrote. The tweet inadvertently inspired a thread of women who came together for the sole purpose of complimenting one another.

Girl you’re one to talk. Look at your skin, GLOWING

— Saya Norton (@sayanorton_) May 18, 2018

At the time of writing this article, the original tweet had 2,000 replies — most of which are women lifting each other up. Could someone please @ me when all of Twitter is this perfect? 

6. Meghan Markle's pre-glow up photo

When actress Meghan Markle married Prince Harry on May 19, we were blessed not only with gorgeous photos from the big day, but with photos of a young Markle in her pre-royal family days. While she was off becoming the Duchess of Sussex, the internet was busy obsessing over an old photo of the former actress as a teen tourist posing in front of Buckingham Palace in London.

Straight-up inspired by her transformation from teen tourist to adult royal, people dubbed Markle's love story the Ultimate Glow Up. #Goals

every time i feel giving up on anything i'm just going to look at this picture set and get my life pic.twitter.com/t7AFDO2DW7

— indie (@INDIEWASHERE) May 19, 2018

7. Dramatic Little League kid

Little League is no laughing matter. Unless, of course, you're this adorable jokester who was told to run from third base to home "as fast as he can."

In one of the most dramatic moments in Little League's little history, Twitter user @TabbyRodriguez's teeny cousin Lenn completed his victory sprint in agonizing slow motion, taking more than 45 seconds to run to home base. Lenn ignored the haters, making for some absolutely perfect content.

8. Jenna Fischer telling The Office fans about Pam and Michael's airport goodbye

Fans of the beloved NBC comedy The Office still aren't ready to let go of their Scranton family. So when Jenna Fischer, who played Pam Beesley on the show, took a moment to reminisce about the emotional Goodbye, Michael episode, people were pretty pumped.

In an Instagram live, Fischer revealed to followers what her character said to Steve Carrell's during their touching airport goodbye scene. 

"That was me talking to Steve," Fischer told her Instagram followers. "I told him all the ways I was going to miss him when he left our show. Those were real tears and a real goodbye. That was a really emotional scene."

BRB, sobbing.

9. Fans coming together after Brooklyn Nine-Nine was cancelled

A brief moment of absolute panic descended upon Brooklyn Nine-Nine Twitter in May after it was revealed that the show had been cancelled by Fox.

ME IMMEDIATELY AFTER FINDING OUT @Brooklyn99FOX WAS CANCELLED AT WORK pic.twitter.com/8IrllX2TYU

— Nicole Gallucci (@nicolemichele5) May 10, 2018

Fans (and celebs) were distraught by the news, but quickly bounced back from mourning to fight like hell to keep the show going. People tweeted at networks, shared how important the plot lines and characters were to their lives, and furiously thanked the creators, writers, actors, and crew members for all their hard work.

And you know what? IT WORKED. In a beautiful 2018 plot twist, NBC decided to pick up the comedy for a sixth season. One of the most blessed turn of events all year.

We got your SIX! #Brooklyn99 is officially coming to NBC! pic.twitter.com/NNQw2OZquH

— NBC Entertainment (@nbc) May 12, 2018

10. Mom's viral cheesecake rant

"Do you want the fucking cake or do you not want the fucking cake?" That's the question fed-up baker and business owner Kim Copeland — and eventually thousands of others — were dying to know the answer to in May 2018. 

The internet got the rage-filled hero it needed when Twitter user @adrienne_bc shared an entertaining 2:20 long video of her mom, Copeland, contemplating a vague AF cheesecake order commitment made by some flaky person named Ginger. After reading their text exchanges, reflecting on proper cake-ordering etiquette, and explaining everything she has going on in her own busy life, Copeland straight-up went OFF, asking, "Just tell me, Ginger, do you want the fucking cheesecake?"

I wonder if Ginger will dare order another fucking cheesecake again.

11. Kendall Jenner vs. Kacey Musgraves

Ah, FEUDS! Gotta love 'em... especially when they're between celebrities, and they end far sooner than expected and in a very gentle manner, right? Thus is the story of Kendall Jenner and Kacey Musgraves' short-lived, not-actually-a-feud feud.

The tale goes like this: In May, Jenner shared a photo on Instagram of herself sipping tea on a New York City rooftop while wearing lingerie...as one does. And in the background of her picture was a Musgraves billboard, except OH WAIT. It's blurred out. *gasp*

A post shared by Kendall (@kendalljenner) on May 3, 2018 at 4:44pm PDT

In response Jenner's possible shade, Musgraves shared a screenshot of the Instagram post to her own story, prompting Jenner to apologize profusely for the misunderstood shade via Twitter. Jenner explained she "...didn’t edit this photo! Kacey is literally my fuckin fav! ... ask anyone of my homies i die for her!"

Aw, how nice. It's refreshing to take a breather from hardcore public feuding every so often, isn't it?

12. Busting a move at graduation

Few days in life are as important as your pre-school graduation, and 5-year-old Aubrey Toby celebrated hers to the fullest.

On stage, diploma in-hand and dressed in her purple cap and gown, the precious and fiercely talented North Carolina student proudly danced her way across the stage and towards the exciting world of kindergarten.

Toby's godfather Merle Murrain II shared footage of her busting a celebratory move to Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop The Feeling" alongside her far-less enthused classmates. She clearly stole the show and better make the graduation dance a regular part of any future ceremonies. 

A post shared by Merle Murrain II (@themerlemurrain) on Jun 2, 2018 at 9:59am PDT

13. The #APESHITCHALLENGE

Beyoncé and Jay-Z have had quite the 2018 already, what with going on tour together and dropping a joint album out of nowhere. And in case that wasn't enough, they also inspired a very good viral challenge.

The #APESHITCHALLENGE was born after Bey and Jay dropped their music video for "APESHIT" (which was casually filmed at the Louvre in Paris, btw). In one scene, Beyoncé thrashes at the top of a massive staircase while dressed in a huge white gown. Fans promptly recreated the moment in their own homes, using a white bed sheet to get the effect.

14. Hillary Clinton mocking James Comey

Remember that time Hillary Clinton absolutely roasted former FBI Director James Comey on Twitter? 'Twas brilliant.

She simply couldn't resist after it was announced that Comey used a personal email account for his own official government business. Yes, this is the same Comey who opened an investigation ahead of the 2016 election into Clinton's private email account usage during her time as Secretary of State.

But my emails. https://t.co/G7TIWDEG0p

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 14, 2018

"But my emails," Clinton wrote, quote-tweeting news of Comey's personal email troubles. A tweet so iconic it almost lives up to "Delete your account."

15. DJ Switch

Say hello to DJ Switch, the coolest young DJ in Ghana. BBC News Africa shared a video of Erica, aka DJ Switch, who started dropping beats at the age of 9 and has been inspiring people ever since. 

"I picked the name DJ Switch because I switch up people's happiness," Erica said, explaining that while DJing is her passion, she wants to be a gynocologist when she grows up so that she can "help women."

HERO. 

16. A massive Twitter thread of puppies

Finally, we end this light and joyous trip down memory lane with this extremely lengthy Twitter thread of puppies meeting, playing, and being very cute together. Twitter user @BlairBraverman truly blessed the internet with this one.

As you know, we have a lot of puppies right now. pic.twitter.com/Vsw5SE0Wzt

— Blair Braverman (@BlairBraverman) June 26, 2018

It's been a wild ride. Let's hope there's more where these came from in the second half of 2018.

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Nevertheless

“She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” This quote has become a well known one for many people. Standing up for what we believe, what we know to be right, and what we’d like people to hear is important isn’t is? We do it everyday. We generally know the consequences of our actions, we can be explained something over and over again but we still continue to move forward. Striving everyday for change, for our goals, for our dreams; sometimes even away from the crowd resulting in us standing either all alone or only with a small group of people. This can feel so lonely, so shameful, and leave the person who feels they’re doing the right thing feeling guilty. There are many times in my life that I can say that this has been a feeling that has shaken me to my core. It has made me feel that my beliefs, my goals, my dreams, my ideology was utterly wrong. That feeling is unexplainable. You question everything you know, you isolate yourself, you lose a sense of yourself and your identity. There are many situations that currently have me feeling many different ways. We as people have come so divided that being able to be your true self is so rare. It’s almost shameful to be yourself if you do not fit in with the crowd or the current ideology of the time, or even the ideology of the people in your surroundings. Immigration has been a huge topic as of late. This idea that these people are less than people who are American citizens is one that I will never understand.

I met a man 4 years ago. A man who changed my life, majority of it for the better. I learned so much, I gained a beautiful son, and I became much more humbled. This man came from so little and had built so much. He had been brought to American when he was not much younger than my oldest child. I look at my daughter and can’t imagine the fright a child that age must feel coming to a new country. New people, new culture, new language, new everything. Nothing resembles the place that you’ve known since birth and on top of that you cannot be you. You cannot let anyone know the biggest secret of your life. You already are less than others. You are not a citizen, you do not have any opportunities, you do not exisit, you are treated poorly based only off of the color of your skin and the ideology that because you are Hispanic you must be illegal, and because you must be illegal you must be a murder, rapist, or other criminally offending individual. Not to mention it’s probably assumed that you don’t pay taxes, you live off the government, and you steal all of the employment opportunities. When I met this man I had a 5 year old daughter, I was living on my own, nice car, had just graduated college with double bachelors, and was working a job that paid really well. I remember sitting with my head in his lap, him looking at me, and telling me that I was too good for him. When I had asked why it boiled down to the fact that I was an American Citizen. The amount of opportunities and things that I could accomplish was fair more than the ones that this man had. He would struggle his whole life to maintain a visa so that he could work. He would struggle to purchase a house, a car, and even go to school. Things that I never dreamed of not being able to do he was unable. He lived in fear everyday that he would be sent back to a country that he didn’t even know. That he didn’t even remember. I was better than him because I was privileged. Things that I took for granted, things that were just “expected” to happen as I got older wasn’t even something within arms length for him. He was thankful for what he had and worked harder than anyone I had ever met to achieve the things he had.

In 2012 Obama came out with an executive order referred to as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). This executive order allowed people who were brought to the United States while they were under the age of 16 and before 2007 to apply and possibly receive a visa that would allow them to work, have a social security number, go to school, and be protected from deportation. To receive this visa the individual must pass a background check, pay a fee, and register with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. The people who qualified for this visa were children who, while they were brought to the United States unlawfully were not brought here on their own accord and President Obama felt that these children deserved opportunities, and not punishment for a decision they had no choice in. DACA has helped over 800,000 people work, study, and contribute to the society of the United States. They have helped our economy and bring many beneficial things to our society. These visas must be renewed every two years and undergo the same process ie, background checks, pay the fee, and register each time. The misconception is that these people don’t pay taxes, steal jobs, commit crimes, and live off of the government (or American citizens tax dollars). While I cannot speak for every single DACA recipient I can speak about the ones I know and the undocumented individuals I know. All of them pay taxes each year, just as I do. They generally pay in more money than many other people. DACA is not covered by any tax payers. The fee’s pay for all of the immigrantion services that are offered in the United States. These individual are hard workers and generally work for less money than American citizens would. Americans have gained this sense of entitlement while these individuals are hard working and deserve everything they have. ​I am fairly certain that the Obama administrations intentions were not to allow people to be rewarded for breaking the “rule of law” but rather to allow these young “DREAMers” who arrived in the United States without authorization but by no fault of their own to work, attended school, and received protection from deportation as long as they continued to pass a background check, not partake in criminal activity, and register with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

By canceling DACA and taking away these opportunity from DREAMers we’re not only negatively effecting DREAMer’s themselves but many also American’s and the economy. Our country was build by immigrants. It has been a place where a large iconic symbol, the Statue of Liberty, is an icon of freedom and of the United States, and was a welcoming sight to immigrants arriving from abroad since 1886. Engraved with the quote “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” As we become so insistent on removing illegal immigrants I begin to wonder what the symbol of the Statue of Liberty will become. In the United States we have prided ourself on being caring, giving, and helping individuals but punishing individuals who did not come here on their own accord and know no other country does not seem in the least bit sympathetic. The United States has always been considered a melting pot, which has been seen as a positive thing. We are accepting of everyone and their different nationalities and learn so much through them about different cultures helping us as people to grow and evolve. These are individuals who are hard working and taking their jobs from them because of a bill that was past through an executive edict or an executive overreach seems like punishment to them because of a decision of a previous president. These individual have built families, bought houses, cars, and have children. Losing DACA and their right to work can jeopardize all of these things for them not to mention if they get sent back to their county of origin, who knows what will happen to them. It can also result in the remaining family they leave behind being unable to financial support themselves on one income and needing to rely on state support therefore costing more money in these areas. DACA recipients who lose the current opportunities they have will have an economical impact on all of us in the United States. We will also lose many great people with many great qualities, great potential, and who bring great insight to America.

The other question often asked is why don’t these people get their citizenship but what most people don’t understand is that obtaining citizenship is a long and expensive process that many can’t afford. While I agree that a solution needs be decided by congress, I’d like to remind you that while DACA wasn’t ideal in the way it was rolled out the removal of it isn’t ideal either for many people. Supporting and passing the Dream Act of 2017 which allows DACA recipients a pathway to citizenship and helps keep these individuals working and with their families should be the ultimate goal. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side of DACA.