#unsubscribing to all these brands

[ssorpio]

everday i receive emails. im tired of it

[leftoblique]

This video is important.

We all watched the hbomb vid (or at least got a summary of it) explaining how Somerton stole much of his "research" word-for-word from other queer creators and writers.

Okay, so, we unsubscribe from his channel; we've done our part; everything is cool now, right?

Unfortunately, no. The biggest damage Somerton did may not have been to those he stole from. Rather, it was inventing large swathes of LGBTQ+ history out of whole cloth, tinged with his own incel-adjacent brand of misogyny and weird anti-establishment centrism.

Worse, many of the "facts" Somerton invented are freely circulating on the internet, even on this website, and they are coloring how queers - and especially young queers - understand our own history.

So it's not enough that Somerton's empire burns and he flees with his tail between his legs. We need to actively purge all of the nonsense he injected into the discourse - out of his own personal agendas and resentments - in the years he was posing as an intellectual authority (perhaps the intellectual authority) on our history and experiences.

So give it a watch. It's not nearly as long as the hbomb video and it's neatly organized as well. Save it as a reference for the next time someone pulls out a "Somerton fact" you need to debunk.

Let's work to preserve our history from liars and charlatans.

[allurilove]

girl you don't KNOW how much the dumb yandere scratched that itch and i need MORE OF HIM🥺🥺

(also if you want smut and reader is the dominant one lol)

You were curious to see what your husband was doing on his brand new phone you got him. You secretly grabbed it off the bedside table, and you sat up and leaned back against the headrest. He was in the bathroom and you had a couple of minutes to snoop around. A normal person would probably have a hard password on their phone (at least you did), but of course he did not. 1234 was your first and last guess, the phone immediately unlocking, and you are greeted with a generic wallpaper.

He doesn’t have any games on his phone, and when you looked at his screen time, he’s mostly been on youtube. So, that was the first app you decided to look through.

He’s only been watching cooking videos, how to do this or that, and even “The ENTIRE Story of Greek Mythology Explained” by a youtuber named “The Life Guide.”

Alright, you weren’t expecting much, and so far, it seemed like everything he would watch and search up. You then decided to scroll through his photo albums. He had about thirty photos of blurry images that must’ve been taken by mistake. Most of them were unfocused or pictures of the ground. You went through his messages and the only contact he has is you. He texted you often, and when it came around the time you would get off work, he would call you.

He didn’t like the idea of you walking alone after work, and even if you explained to him that it was easier that way and it wasn’t even that long of a walk, he would be standing there outside of your building. You did teach him how to read a map, and even use gps. But, the downside was that he knew where to find you all the time

So, zero games and pictures. He did have a long search history and none of them were alarming. He wasn’t on instagram, snapchat, facebook, and even twitter. Doesn’t have discord and twitch. He thinks filters are scary, and he doesn’t know anything about memes. He’s seriously unplugged.

You check his email to see if he was signed up to anything… and he only had three messages. One from google telling him someone logged into his account, a little ‘welcome’ for opening a gmail account, and a ‘forgot password’ email. Usually your inbox was flooded with scam mail, sites that are a pain to unsubscribe to, and some random miscellaneous shit.

You checked his notes app and, lo and behold, the motherlode. This is what you were looking for. It almost felt weird to read through them; it was like you were picking at his brain and seeing all of his inner thoughts. You clicked on one of them, and it was all just different spellings of the word ‘Wednesday.’ Seriously?

[acowboynamedasa]

Ok I know I already made a post about watchertv and how it’s a horrible idea and no have not had a change of heart about that- but I really just want to get into the math of everything because like, they we’re making a LOT of money.

(Full disclosure this post has been edited to be more accurate with help from commenters)

Patreon: they have 12,000 supporters, but only 5,900 paying supporters (at the time of me checking today. Many definitely unsubscribed when this video dropped). The tear options are 5, 10, 25, and 100 dollars. Assuming that most people are in the 5-10 range, I’ll average it at about 7 dollars. Witch is 41,300 a month.

Merch sales: they have a very devout fan base that buys a lot of merch, they sell a plastic paper weight for 36 dollars. All of their hoodies are 80 dollars. Their shirts are 35-50 dollars. They sell a pack of 7 patches of their different show logos for 65 dollars. The posters are 80 dollars. To my knowledge They do not publicly share what they make from merch sales, but I know that they have sold out of certain styles, witch means that people are buying these. The merch is without a doubt at a very steep profit margin- no where in the world will it cost 80 or even 40 dollars to make these- so we can just assume that whatever assured total we come too, it will be higher by 10-20 thousand(just an estimate, I’m not an expert on YouTube merch).

Sponsorships: (this info is from moist critical who runs a company who specialize in setting up brand sponsorships with YouTube channels.) watcher is/was a very big and successful channel, with 2 minute sponsorships adds on every video I could find- they are with out a doubt making 20-30 thousand dollars from every one of those sponsorships. They post weekly, meaning they make about 100,000 a month from that. This doesn’t include any money they received from discount codes either, only about 2% of viewers use discount codes so it’s fair to say they receive a few thousand dollars from that, we can just total it to about 101,000 to be conservative.

views: YouTube has always been very hush hush about what they pay. Different YouTubers have stepped forward and said what they make on views alone but watcher is not one of these channels. With watchers average views being about 800,000 per video (very ‘about’, some get 3 million and others only reach 500,000) and YouTubes policy being about .018 cents per view we can say they comfortably make 14,400 per video, 57,000 a month.

Add cents: add cents and views are a different thing, for every add that is seen in a video you get a adicional .018 cents, watchers content is very monetizable, and with it being long form content 30-45 minutes, they have a lot of adds. Let’s just assume 1-2 mid roll ads on every video and that’s an additional 20,000 per video, 80,000 a month.

Adding ALL of that together

Watcher makes 279,300 dollars a month. Flat out, no merch added.

If you think you can’t afford to pay 25 people a month with 279,300 dollars- I literally don’t know what to tell you.

[warningsine]

Living online means never quite understanding what’s happening to you at a given moment. Why these search results? Why this product recommendation? There is a feeling—often warranted, sometimes conspiracy-minded—that we are constantly manipulated by platforms and websites.

So-called dark patterns, deceptive bits of web design that can trick people into certain choices online, make it harder to unsubscribe from a scammy or unwanted newsletter; they nudge us into purchases. Algorithms optimized for engagement shape what we see on social media and can goad us into participation by showing us things that are likely to provoke strong emotional responses. But although we know that all of this is happening in aggregate, it’s hard to know specifically how large technology companies exert their influence over our lives.

This week, Wired published a story by the former FTC attorney Megan Gray that illustrates the dynamic in a nutshell. The op-ed argued that Google alters user searches to include more lucrative keywords. For example, Google is said to surreptitiously replace a query for “children’s clothing” with “NIKOLAI-brand kidswear” on the back end in order to direct users to lucrative shopping links on the results page. It’s an alarming allegation, and Ned Adriance, a spokesperson for Google, told me that it’s “flat-out false.” Gray, who is also a former vice president of the Google Search competitor DuckDuckGo, had seemingly misinterpreted a chart that was briefly presented during the company’s ongoing U.S. et al v. Google trial, in which the company is defending itself against charges that it violated federal antitrust law. (That chart, according to Adriance, represents a “phrase match” feature that the company uses for its ads product; “Google does not delete queries and replace them with ones that monetize better as the opinion piece suggests, and the organic results you see in Search are not affected by our ads systems,” he said.)

Gray told me, “I stand by my larger point—the Google Search team and Google ad team worked together to secretly boost commercial queries, which triggered more ads and thus revenue. Google isn’t contesting this, as far as I know.” In a statement, Chelsea Russo, another Google spokesperson, reiterated that the company’s products do not work this way and cited testimony from Google VP Jerry Dischler that “the organic team does not take data from the ads team in order to affect its ranking and affect its result.” Wired did not respond to a request for comment. Last night, the publication removed the story from its website, noting that it does not meet Wired’s editorial standards.

It’s hard to know what to make of these competing statements. Gray’s specific facts may be wrong, but the broader concerns about Google’s business—that it makes monetization decisions that could lead the product to feel less useful or enjoyable—form the heart of the government’s case against the company. None of this is easy to untangle in plain English—in fact, that’s the whole point of the trial. For most of us, evidence about Big Tech’s products tends to be anecdotal or fuzzy—more vibes-based than factual. Google may not be altering billions of queries in the manner that the Wired story suggests, but the company is constantly tweaking and ranking what we see, while injecting ads and proprietary widgets into our feed, thereby altering our experience. And so we end up saying that Google Search is less useful now or that shopping on Amazon has gotten worse. These tools are so embedded in our lives that we feel acutely that something is off, even if we can’t put our finger on the technical problem.

That’s changing. In the past month, thanks to a series of antitrust actions on behalf of the federal government, hard evidence of the ways that Silicon Valley’s biggest companies are wielding their influence is trickling out. Google’s trial is under way, and while the tech giant is trying to keep testimony locked down, the past four weeks have helped illustrate—via internal company documents and slide decks like the one cited by Wired—how Google has used its war chest to broker deals and dominate the search market. Perhaps the specifics of Gray’s essay were off, but we have learned, for instance, how company executives considered adjusting Google’s products to lead to more “monetizable queries.” And just last week, the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Amazon alleging anticompetitive practices. (Amazon has called the suit “misguided.”)

Filings related to that suit have delivered a staggering revelation concerning a secretive Amazon algorithm code-named Project Nessie. The particulars of Nessie were heavily redacted in the public complaint, but this week The Wall Street Journal revealed details of the program. According to the unredacted complaint, a copy of which I have also viewed, Nessie—which is no longer in use—monitored industry prices of specific goods to determine whether competitors were algorithmically matching Amazon’s prices. In the event that competitors were, Nessie would exploit this by systematically raising prices on goods across Amazon, encouraging its competitors to follow suit. Amazon, via the algorithm, knew that it would be able to charge more on its own site, because it didn’t have to worry about being undercut elsewhere, thereby making the broader online shopping experience worse for everyone. An Amazon spokesperson told the Journal that the FTC is mischaracterizing the tool, and suggested that Nessie was a way to monitor competitor pricing and keep price-matching algorithms from dropping prices to unsustainable levels (the company did not respond to my request for comment).

In the FTC’s telling, Project Nessie demonstrates the sheer scope of Amazon’s power in online markets. The project arguably amounted to a form of unilateral price fixing, where Amazon essentially goaded its competitors into acting like cartel members without even knowing they’d done so—all while raising prices on consumers. It’s an astonishing form of influence, powered by behind-the-scenes technology.

The government will need to prove whether this type of algorithmic influence is illegal. But even putting legality aside, Project Nessie is a sterling example of the way that Big Tech has supercharged capitalistic tendencies and manipulated markets in unnatural and opaque ways. It demonstrates the muscle that a company can throw around when it has consolidated its position in a given sector. The complaint alleges that Amazon’s reach and logistics capabilities force third-party sellers to offer products on Amazon and for lower prices than other retailers. Once it captured a significant share of the retail market, Amazon was allegedly able to use algorithmic tools such as Nessie to drive prices up for specific products, boosting revenues and manipulating competitors.

Reading about Project Nessie, I was surprised to feel a sense of relief. In recent years, customer-satisfaction ratings have dipped among Amazon shoppers who have cited delivery disruptions, an explosion of third-party sellers, and poor-quality products as reasons for frustration. In my own life and among friends and relatives, there has been a growing feeling that shopping on the platform has become a slog, with fewer deals and far more junk to sift through. Again, these feelings tend to occupy vibe territory: Amazon’s bigness seems stifling or grating in ways that aren’t always easy to explain. But Nessie offers a partial explanation for this frustration, as do revelations about Google’s various product adjustments. We have the sense that we’re being manipulated because, well, we are. It’s a bit like feeling vaguely sick, going to the doctor, and receiving a blood-test result confirming that, yes, the malaise you experienced is actually an iron deficiency. It is the catharsis of, at long last, receiving a diagnosis.

This is the true power of the surge in anti-monopoly litigation. (According to experts in the field, September was “the most extraordinary month they have ever seen in antitrust.”) Whether or not any of these lawsuits results in corporate breakups or lasting change, they are, effectively, an MRI of our sprawling digital economy—a forensic look at what these larger-than-life technology companies are really doing, and how they are exerting their influence and causing damage. It is confirmation that what so many of us have felt—that the platforms dictating our online experiences are behaving unnaturally and manipulatively—is not merely a paranoid delusion, but the effect of an asymmetrical relationship between the giants of scale and us, the users.

In recent years, it’s been harder to love the internet, a miracle of connectivity that feels ever more bloated, stagnant, commercialized, and junkified. We are just now starting to understand the specifics of this transformation—the true influence of Silicon Valley’s vise grip on our lives. It turns out that the slow rot we might feel isn’t just in our heads, after all.

[kay-claire]

What really gets me with the whole watcher thing is that like, there are ways for them to have made this decision without it going so horribly wrong. Like they could have said "hey we want to be more independent and not rely on platforms like Patreon and YouTube as heavily as we currently do. So moving forward we will be moving all our Patreon content over to our new streaming platform. Content will be posted there a week/month earlier than YouTube, and we will still be posting our regular content on YouTube, but we hope that you will consider joining our new streaming platform in the future." and THEN, after a few months, they could have said "We're planning to make brand new shows that will be exclusive to our new platform, and we'll share the pilots of those shows on YouTube, but after that the rest of the episodes will only be available on that platform. All your favourite Watcher shows will still continue to be made and posted to YouTube, but reminder that they're available earlier on our streaming platform." Or something like that, that could have been a gradual change. People would have still probably been like "lol no" but they wouldn't be unsubscribing in droves.

Asking people to pay $6 a month for a new platform that doesn't have any content on it currently, and they only put out 1 video a week?? This was never going to work. People are willing to spend $5 on Patreon a month to support their favourite creators, but there's a big difference between supporting someone's Patreon and paying for a product they used to be able to get for free.

(Also why the fuck was the announcement video 14 minutes long?? I skipped to the very end to just see the actual announcement, did anyone even watch the whole sob story?)

[maxzinn]

What bothers me after all this drama is that those users that made the posts calling out the type of fics they were bothered with, didnt actually include like a list of those fics (probably to avoid an entire purge and hatred), and everyone in the comments of those posts just suddenly at a flip of a switch, all could only think about one. single. story...and that was the 2 part fic from the now deactivated account.

So for a fic which diverges from canon by having Aventurine NOT go through the entire rollercoaster of drama and be given a chance at a normal life, everyone and their mother jumped to bully the writer. Please, gimme a break, he could've still become the same charismatic gambler we all know and love, just he would've had an oh idk- a little support system given by the person that got him out of a much crappy life? Seriously, how many fics AREN'T out there which diverge at one point from canon?! Or, even better, ignore the canon completely and they are their own thing! HOW MANY- A LOT OF THEM ARE!

It's like they were bothered that there can be a "what if Aventurine was saved before he went through the rest of that hell?", as if his canon story is the only thing that matters and shouldn't be changed at all - THE MAN IS IN SHAMBLES. HE WANTED TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM LIFE. And I cant be the only one who doesnt believe that him, as he grow up, didn't wish for someone to come to his aid, to take him out of there, but the more time passed, the more hope he lost and he just "well, guess I'll do this on my own". He. Has. No. One. To. Talk. To. Without. Him. Hidding. Behind. The. Persona. He. Created. No one.

Anon you have said exactly everything that I wanted to hear ‼️

(They all started this mess so I’m not gonna stop till I get my point straight across their faces)

These people CANNOT tell me that Aventurine didn’t want to be saved. They CANNOT tell me he didn’t hope for a helping hand throughout this whole hell.

The IPC had failed him and his race from the very beginning when they failed to protect Sigonia IV and the Avgins from the Katicans, and yet I still see people saying that creating a fic where he was saved is disregarding his effort in surviving like pls- my girl… he wanted to DIE to be with his family again and he’s literally in the clutches of the very same company that FAILED him and his kind. His life is literally in their hands and NO ONE would ever want to be at the mercy of the very same people who failed you.

He’s tired. He thinks so lowly of himself. He thinks he has no worth. He has no self-esteem.

All of that could’ve been avoided if someone had helped him, way before his neck was branded by the slave mark, or even during the time he was enslaved.

Like you said, there are already tons of fics that diverts from the canon story of the character into something that is almost disregarding it, so why is that an issue now?

We all love him the way he is, but don’t you think it’s also insensitive to say that when he himself hated the process or events that transpired to become what he is now?

I give him credit for his hardwork and efforts for staying alive and getting past the hell, but that cost him EVERYTHING. He survived, but he thinks so lowly of himself. He still think he’s only worth 60 tanbas. He didn’t refute Ratio and Sparkle’s insult. He throws his own body on every gamble because he thinks that’s his only worth… and now a simple harmless fic that aimed to provide him a normal life free from that tragedy was frowned upon by everyone just because the reader “bought him as a slave”.

[ctraceywrites]

Operation Blockout and Operation No Buy Out

A new protest that's been stated in tiktok to help bring down celebrities that have been silent on what's happening in Gaza. While everyday people have been risking their livelihoods to speak up and protest, most celebrities have been staying silent so they don't lose their brand deals.

By working enmass we're able to fuck with these celebrities by just blocking them on all social media, even if you don't already follow them, down voting and blocking their music, and going to their online stores to fill up the cart and then abandon it. You can also sign up for their, or their shops, online newsletter then unsubscribe then mark it as spam.

These methods will trigger the algorithms on these sites to stop showing their stuff and fuck with the honestly insane amount of money these celebrities make online.

If you know celebrities I should block, let me know. I do not know famous people almost at all.

And yes, all celebrities. Yes, even that one. It doesn't matter how much you like their music or their products. Unless they have been clearly and actively pro-palestine since the beginning, even if they're starting to say something now, block them.

This has been starting to work and we're seeing more celebrities at least vaguely call for a ceasefire, we need them to stop paying lip service and put their obscene wealth where it should be going. So block them.

[yuurei20]

Added Dialogue Compilation Part 1

Dialogue changes are a natural part of the localization process, and sometimes entirely new dialogue that never existed in the first place gets added to better appeal to the different target market.

For example:

Trey: His signature spell is a weapon.

A heavy judgement from Trey, this line didn't exist in the original game. Does this mean that Trey (as he was originally written) doesn't actually consider Riddle's magic to be a weapon? Or maybe it's originally unspoken subtext being said aloud?

Ace: Nah, bro. I've got a shovel and I am DIGGING.

Ace, Cater and Grim might be the three characters with more NA-original dialogue than any other. Most of the time it is very much on brand.

Chenya: They're out of this world.

Chenya: Oh, but it's LOTS of fun!

Trey: ...but calling it "poison" is kinda...yikes.

I just realized that NA isn't getting Chenya's verbal tic of saying "nya" (meow) all the time! Linguistically impossible, I think, which is too bad :<

Cater: If you were on all Magicam, I'd totally unsubscribe from your feed.

Cater: Hashtag # lame.

Cater: ...and keep this in the figurative DMs, if you catch my drift?

Cater's original slang is impossible to recreate in English, but it is certainly less SNS-centric than what it has been turned into on NA.

Cater: The smiles and the tears?

For Ruggie, both "Boss" and "Cross my heart and hope to die!" were added to the NA edit of the game. (memo: want to confirm whether or not Ruggie ever canonically refers to Leona as anything other than Leona-san)

Ace: You're more of a square than Loosey-Deucey over here!

Ace: Keepin' your friends close and your anemones closer over there!

Ace: All in favor? Aye! The ayes have it!

Given how difficult humor is to translate, the introduction of American-style jokes is no surprise :>

Ace: ...but what's life without a little spice?

Floyd: ...a dirty dishrag!

Floyd's expression here was changed from a one-time throwaway line by Azul in Book 4 (that made sense in the context of one specific scene) on JP to a phrase that Floyd uses repeatedly on NA.

Grim: Er, do they have hills underwater? Whatever.

Grim: And make it extra drink-y!

Grim and Ace having so many NA-style jokes added might come from them being on the "comedy relief" end of the spectrum? These aren't gags that were changed, however, but were added entirely.

Jade: ...brother...

(neither twin refers to the other as anything other than their first name, as an age-neutral word for 'brother' does not exist in Japanese and neither tweel is any older than the other)

Floyd: Hey, are you yankin' my tail here?

Azul: ...your face is going to crack when you hear this

Ace: Gee, you think a GAZILLION windows was enough?

(all above added for NA)

Cater: Oh, the drama! Oh, the SUSPENSE!

Jack: What're they gonna do, flog me?

Jack has a variation to his speech patterns similar to (but less dramatic than) Epel's, which really can't be recreated in English. That might be where lines like this come from, to compensate.

[deadrabbitohno]

mmh yes, Black Friday. it’s time to unsubscribe from all these brands who are kind enough to remind me to do so by sending me annoying emails trying to sell me shit in these abhorrent times

[dojae-huh]

I'm going to write a sad and serious post, so if you are still in the mood to celebrate NY, please skip it and read later.

Doyoung looked happy during the end of year concert, so, touch wood, he wasn't too affected by the MC scandal. I hope he learnt how to withstand and wait out personal attacks by now. He has been an idol for a long time, and had many a trouble.

I was a bit surprised that only 3 people unsubscribed from me in the past days. Either few subscribers read me regularly, or I successfully weed out the weak ones (I have a high subscribe/unsubscribe rate).

I'm not very eloquent with my words. I often come off too harsh and don't deliver my point of view well. I'm coming back to the topic of online virtue-signalling, "do good" pressure, witch-hunting of idols as I need to clarify a few points.

On the first glance it might seem like I'm behaving like a fan who protects one's bias. Actually, I would defend any idol who is accused of things he/she didn't do/that weren't proven. My opposition is to the mob, to the cancelling culture, to the people who use nice pretext to be awful humans. Their power is strong, they crush not only celebreties, but grind in the mix other fans as well. And I want more people to learn how to withstand this type of bullying into complience with the mob's POV.

The masses are often wrong. And a minority often looks like it represents the opinion of the majority, when in reality media and socmed algorythms just favour loud confrontational people and people who earn being "spokepersons". You don't have to pick a side if you don't want to. You don't need and you actually can't have an opinion on every subject. You can and should hear out people you disagree with or who has bad sides to them (like being a homophobe). A person possessing a bad character or view still stays a source of information you can learn from.

You will be pressured by "well-meaning" people into action "for the cause". Not just pressured - bullied. You won't be given a chance to question the cause, its revelance to you, whether there is a point to it, will the associated campaign bring any positive change really. Swear words, accusations of lacking morale, empathy, threats of being cancelled would be thrown at you if you won't comply. So the task is to learn to see through the wall of trigger words and mass histeria, to be able to ask questions and think and decide for oneself.

I didn't follow the Korean fans vs Indonesian fans fanwar. I don't know the specifics. Still, I can comment on absurdity of (some) Indonesians cancelling a Korean idol over a fastfood brand boycott that has little to do with their country. Indoneasia has an ongoing conflict of their own. Papua wants to become independent and is not allowed to. Killing or rebels - check. Denial of self-identification - check. Indonesians from other islands, other ethnicities, coming to the land and using its resources, starting to live there - check (Indonesia populates Papua with other peoples deliberetely, selling of mining and logging rights to foreign companies is rampant). When I went to YT to look for a video on the conflict, I came across the fact that Indonesia has a migrant issue as well. Rohingya refugees, a muslim minority fleeing Myanmar.

It is the truth that athrocities and injustice happen all over the world at the same time. And not only man-made conflicts. Poverty, ilnesses, nature destruction. People suffer and die constantly. People following online mobs that get into a frenzie after media shines light on a particular issue and bully everyone to do the same are hypocritical. The world is big, people in one part of the world deserve peace and to be preoccupied with their mandane lives, celebrate, even if something bad happens in another part of the world.

When Russia-Ukrainian war started I followed it closely. I listened to commentators from both sides and I was watching the videos from the battleground with burnt corpses in tanks, Ukranian drones releasing explosives on the heads of Russian soldiers, child graves dug on playgrounds, leveled to the ground cities (before and after airial photos), as well as humanitarian and volunteer campaigns, etc. I also read comments and observed the wave of hate Russians were getting online from "well-meaning" people. I was stripped off of the ability to use credit cards abroad, ability to enter several European countries, and other issues. It was a very unstable time when everyting changed every day, I was afraid to be locked in Russia like Soviet people were locked in USSR (it's a real concern among Russians, a new iron wall). Back then I constantly switched between reading about the war and writing silly stuff here on this blog. I didn't write about the war not only because I wanted a space to escape to, but also because it was a local problem. Yes, huge, and affecting the whole world (oil, gas, vegetable oil, wheat, more refugees, the disraption of the "peace" in Europe, etc), but still a conflict people in Indonesia, Thailand, India, South America and so on had the right to avert their eyes from.

Right before New Year Russia (nothing sacred for Putin) sent rockets to several large Ukranian cities. You can see Ukranian k-pop cover groups filming dance covers for YT and think that everyrhing has calmed down, that it's only soldiers who fight on the perifery. Well, no. And Ukraine also sent rockets into a Russian town. On both sides civillians died in the buildings during explosions.

Instead of a NY conglaturation, a political oppositioner on YT I watch released a video with information about a couple of people that died. Turned statistics into stories about individual human beings. You can watch it here, it has English subs. The author asked to forgive him for not being in a celebratory mood, so many commented how they too couldn't celebrate the holiday.

The attack angered me, but I didn't dwell on it. I personally did congratulate all my friends with positive words. And I celebrated. War or not war. I want to live. I want my friends to be successful next year despite actually not knowing their onlook on the conflict (I was hesitant to discuss with some). I don't want Putin and his desire to stay in power to ruin more lives than he already has and will continue to do. Certainly not mine. I have my lane, nature conservation. It is as important as other "fields to do good". And to have any positive impact on the world, firstly I need to stay sane and happy myself. And my friends need to stay sane because they will outlive the dictator and be the part of people who will push for democracy.

To sum it up. Don't fall to the mob's pressure on the internet and don't be quick to judge people, cancel them. Don't delegate thinking and decision making to others. Form your own informed opinions. And don't waste your time on trivial things. Fanwars online don't help anything and anyone. It's action in real life that matters. Even if all you do is being kind to your family and people around you, you still do more good than justice-warriers.

Be kind in 2024.

[mochinek0]

Agreste-Wayne 18

Paris was understandably in shock over Gabriel's former model and her behavior. There had been some fans who had been saddened to see her replaced. Her fandom quickly began to diminish when others began to link the blog to her fan sites. It was worse when the creator of the blog, Adrien Agreste, and Marinette Wayne tore into her on television. Their sadness and faith had turned to rage and hatred. They ripped her posters off the walls, deleted fan pages, they unfavorited and unsubscribed. They realized they had stood up for someone that had hurt the Gabriel brand. Almost immediately, Juleka's fans began to grow in numbers.

Not soon after the broadcast, Lila began to feel the weight of what she had done. Karma had finally come back to haunt her. People recognized her from her years as being a Gabriel model. Suddenly, her once peaceful job had become a war zone. The customers she served either asked for another table or would ignore her until they were ready to speak to her. People began to leave STALKER ALERT as a tip on her receipts, instead of money. It was becoming harder for her to save up. Her boss merely laughed off her concerns when she said she was being harassed by the customers. He said it was her own fault. She complained she wanted it to stop or she would quit.

"Then quit." he stated, "I'm not going to fire you. You're bringing in more customers. They all want to see the model that fell from grace; the model who was really a devil in disguise."

To make matters worse, her mother had called her, screaming about the fact that she had become a joke at work.

"Everyone at work is asking why I haven't had you institutionalized! They are calling me an unfit mother and my job is being called into question! Why did you lie to me? What did I ever do to you to make you think you had to lie so much to get attention? From here on out, don't call me! You're twenty-five years old; you're an adult. You can handle your own problems!"

Lila couldn't stand it anymore. She could hear the whispers behind her back. She couldn't help but wonder if this what she had put Marinette through during school. She went into a beauty supply store and bought hair dye. Lila bleached her hair and looked at the money she had saved up. She had 5000 euros.

'Adrien doesn't want you. He told everyone on TV how he hated you. He wants to put a restraining order on us. He told everyone we were a liar! No one trusts us. No one wants to help us. Not Mama, not the people at the café, not even your friends.'

Before she could change her mind, she looked up housing in Italy and put a down payment on a small studio in Milan for 700 a month. She would have no privacy, but it was better then being in Paris. She deleted everything she had on Gotham and set up a one way ticket for Milan in three days. Lila braided her hair and cut her hair under the hair tie; her hair was now shoulder length. She looked at the mirror and shut her eyes, feeling the tears run down her cheeks. She grabbed the midnight black dye and soaked her hair.

Lila looked in the mirror and whispered, "It will be okay. We can change our name in Italy and it will be like none of this ever happened."

PERMANENT TAG LIST: @animeweebgirl @a-star-with-a-human-name @meme991001 @vixen-uchiha @abrx2002 @alysrose-starchild @fandom-trapped-03 @dood-space @moonlightstar64 @saltymiraculer @marveldcedits20 @09shell-sea09 @icerosecrystal @animegirlweeb @insane-fangirl-of-everything @blueblossombliss @nickristus-dreamer​ @thepaceperson​

AGRESTE-WAYNE TAG LIST: @danielslilangel @pawsitivelymiraculous @crystalangelluna @tomanyfandomsonmymind @sassakitty @ichigorose @megawhitleycalderonpaganus

[dream-critical]

i kinda just want to get this off my chest . my bad if this isn’t even the right place to say this lmao. ive been a fan of tommy for quite a while and im well aware hes close with dream but my god. i do not like dream i fucking hate him tbh

obviously hes not going to suddenly drop dream anytime soon out of the blue but some dumb part of my brain wishes he would lololol

i know im not the only tommy fan who’s also a ‘dranti’ or whatever the fuck . and i really just dont know if i should stop watching him or continue what ive doing- engaging in his content while ignoring everything abt dteam

hes on thin ice for me right now i guess . idk anymore

As someone who used to be a very avid Tommy watcher and someone that really tried to stick with him until the allegations happened (after seeing him constantly interact with dream on twitter I just unfollowed/unsubscribed etc as my interest was fading and I was barely watching his videos anyway and it was genuinely frustrating to see him act like that), I totally get that.

A lot of inniters downright hate dream. And like. Yeah I get that, but I think like. After a certain point you should probably like realize that Tommy is openly friends with dream and even has made jokes about the situation and he's not going to stop anytime soon. And I really think that just taking a step back and just. Dropping him for now would be the best move.

Tbh like I think one thing influencing the whole thing is the fact that Tommy is clinging to the dsmp for dear life bc he just kind of seems lost? As if he doesn't know what to do and how to proceed without the dsmp.

The exile merch, the announcement for yet another "dsmp finale" etc.

Tommy has potential, but I feel like he's throwing it all away bc he refuses to separate himself and his brand from dream and also bc it seems like he just did not expect to lose that big of a chunk of his audience this fast. If the allegations didn't happen he wouldn't have afaik, but he did and now he's just. Stuck like this.

Anyway I haven't watched any of his content in ages so I might be slightly wrong, feel free to correct me ig.

[yahoo-postmaster]

More Secure, Less Spam: Enforcing Email Standards for a Better Experience

By Marcel Becker, Sr Director Product Management

A key mission of Yahoo is to deliver messages that consumers want to receive and filter out the messages they don't. 

To guide and help senders support us in that mission, we have documented our sending best practices on our Sender Hub. In addition, our postmaster teams have assisted the sending community to achieve the best results for them and ultimately for our users.

Yet, numerous bulk senders fail to secure and set up their systems correctly, allowing malicious actors to exploit their resources without detection. A pivotal aspect of addressing these concerns involves sender validation, leveraging email authentication standards to guarantee the verification of the email sender's identity. 

Sending properly authenticated messages helps us to better identify and block billions of malicious messages and declutter our users' inboxes. 

But we believe we can do even more to improve the quality of the emails our users receive as well as fight abuse and ultimately improve the experience for email users everywhere. 

In the first quarter of 2024, we will require that all bulk senders:

Authenticate their email: To help our users to be more confident about an email's source, we will require senders to implement stronger email authentication leveraging industry standards such as SPF, DKIM and DMARC. 

Enable Easy Unsubscription: Our users should be able to unsubscribe from unwanted emails without any hassle. It should just take one click. While we have promoted solutions for some time, adoption of these common sense standards have been low. We will require senders to support one-click unsubscribe and honor our users requests within two days. 

Only send emails our users want: True to our key mission, we want to ensure our users' inboxes are not cluttered with unsolicited or irrelevant emails. While we have measured user reported spam rates for some time and even exposed some of that data for trusted senders, we will start enforcing a threshold to ensure our users can continue to enjoy a spam free mailbox. 

While we are announcing these changes for all domains and consumer email brands hosted by Yahoo Mail, we are not alone in our quest to improve the email experience for users anywhere, keeping emails safe, user friendly and spam free. Our industry peers like Google agree with us: 

“We firmly believe that users worldwide deserve a more secure email environment, with fewer unwanted messages for an improved overall experience. We look forward to working with peers across the industry to boost the adoption of these email standards that benefit everyone.” - Neil Kumaran, Group Product Manager, Gmail Security & Trust

In the coming months we will provide more details on our Sender Hub and we can also be reached at mail-questions@yahooinc.com to provide more information or assist with any questions you might have. 

[mswhich]

You know, when I first started publishing some darker fics (not that anything I've ever written has been super light and fluffy) I was worried that all my readers would immediately unsubscribe and nobody would ever read anything I wrote again.

Which turned out to be incorrect, I'm pleased to say!

But now I'm in this weird reverse situation where I'm like, oh no, I posted something without any archive warnings and no tentacles and everything is reasonably consensual! Maybe everyone will hate it!

I think this is also incorrect, and am sharing this in the hopes that if some of the rest of you are out there writing "off-brand" stuff (what even is a "brand," it is so ridiculous that I have even internalized this weird corporatized language when it comes to my own art, for god's sake) you'll know that a: you're not alone in worrying about it, but b: you shouldn't worry about it.

There might be tentacles in the next fic, anyway.

[danortizdigital]

Creative Review 08

Here’s a quick look back at the Creative happenings and hot topics of the week.

#CreativeReview is a one-stop cheat sheet of everything that happened this week in the digital media world - it’s a weekly summary for creatives, written by creatives and it’s a free/quick read with no registration and we won’t add you to some annoying list that’s impossible to unsubscribe to promise.

Trailer Beat

And Just Like That Season 2  Max, June 22

Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis

Glamorous Netflix, June 22 Kim Cattrall, Zane Phillips, Jade Payton, Michael Hsu Rosen, Ayesha Harris

Todd Strauss-Schulson (Isn’t It Romantic) directed the Glamorous pilot. Kameron Tarlow and Damon Wayans Jr. are also executive producers from their involvement in a previous iteration that was developed at The CW in 2019 with Brooke Shields in the Cattrall role.

Bird Box Barcelona Netflix, July 14 Mario Casas, Georgina Campbell, Diego Calva, Alejandra Howard, Naila Schuberth, Patrick Criado

After a mysterious force decimates the world's population, Sebastian must navigate his own survival journey through the desolate streets of Barcelona.

Marvel Studios' Secret Invasion Disney+, June 21 Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Cobie Smulders, Dermot Mulroney, Emilia Clarke, Olivia Colman

Nick Fury uncovers a conspiracy for a group of shapeshifting Skrulls to infiltrate Earth in positions of power around the world, recruiting Everett K. Ross, Maria Hill, and Talos to stop it and save humanity.

Social Media Tips & Resources

To make the most of your social media presence as a musician, it's crucial to optimize your profiles. When you implement the following strategies, you can ensure that your profiles effectively represent your brand, and attract potential fans, and industry professionals.

🔥 Craft a compelling bio that succinctly describes your music and includes a link to your latest promotional content. Whether it's a new track, album, tour dates, merch drop, or music video, provide a direct pathway for fans to access your most recent releases.

🔥 Determine the best approach to showcase your uniqueness and artistic identity through your profile. This can involve using a consistent visual theme, color scheme, or aesthetic across your social media platforms. It doesn't have to be perfect, but when you make a memorable impression on visitors, you create a strong brand image.

🔥 Update your profile picture across all platforms and ensure it is correctly sized for each. Use a high-quality image, that captures your personality and visually represents your brand. This picture will serve as the initial introduction to your page, so make sure it conveys who you are and what you have to offer as an artist.

🔥 Verification: While not necessary at all in the beginning, (some would argue it's not necessary at all, period.), as you gain more press coverage and establish a solid presence, you can consider pursuing verification on platforms like Instagram or Twitter. Being verified with a blue tick may enhance your credibility, making it easier for fans and industry professionals to find and trust your profile.

✅ Remember, optimizing your social media profiles is an ongoing process. Regularly review and update your bio, profile picture, and overall branding to stay relevant and engaging.

✅ Present a cohesive and professional online presence, and you will increase your chances of attracting new fans, industry connections, and opportunities within the music industry.

Influencer Marketing Can Take Your Music To New Heights Here are a few tips to get you started.

June Spotlight: #TheSoundofPride

Following last week's feature on our #TheSoundofPride playlists - we wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the cutting-edge visuals our #TheSoundofPride artists have created to accompany their musical creations.

Raquel Jones x MEMBA & Fabian Mazur - Not Ready

Gryffin x Tinashe - Scandalous

Noa Kirel - Unicorn Eurovision 2023 finale performance

Tove Lo - No One Dies from Love

Global Creative Spotlight

"Two Brothers" - 2019 Spec Ad for Nintendo made by Alec Helm - never was an official ad, but should've been.

Also, how many Nintendo easter eggs can you spot?

Dear Brother | Spec Ad | Johnnie Walker (2015)

Dear Brother tells the journey of two brothers hiking the wide valleys and rugged mountains of the Scottish Highlands. A journey to the place of their youth, their home.

The ad started as a spec project made by German students Dorian & Daniel and netted more than 800,000 views in its first 24 hours back in 2015 when it was first released.

Speaking to Adweek in 2015, Dorian said, "We wanted to create an emotional film that tells the story of two brothers that go back to the most important places of their youth.

"We love to connect emotional storytelling with great cinematic pictures. So we followed the two brothers on the paths of their youth through the Scottish highlands. We tried to integrate the brand. The story itself is based on the message "Keep Walking."

Pockets

Adam & Eve DDB created a new campaign for The National Lottery that spotlights a long-lasting love between two Lotto players and the lucky ticket that brings them together.

“Pockets” was directed by Oscar-winner Tom Hooper and follows its protagonists over 3 decades.