#using my tumblr blog as a confessional for a moment | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dashboarddiaries · 4 months ago

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Dashboard Diaries is a production of Atypical Artists, hosted by Lauren Shippen (@thelaurenshippen) and Cher McAnelly (@overchers). Our theme was composed by Lauren Shippen and mixed by Brandon Grugle. Art by Shae McMullin. Transcription by Laudable.

For bonus clips, ad-free episodes, and more, become a patron at atypicalartists.co/support.

Lauren: Hello, Dashers! Lauren Shippen here with a quick little comment about this episode before we jump into it. My computer had a complete and total meltdown in the course of recording ... or attempting to record ... this episode. I eventually got things working again but there will be times in this episode where my audio sounds truly terrible. I’m really sorry about that. But it shouldn’t affect the wonderful experience of listening to Gretchen McCulloch talk about Tumblr linguistics. It’s a really, really fun episode. A great interview with Gretchen. So, I hope you guys enjoy ... and sorry for the technical difficulties.

[intro music]

Lauren: Hello, Enthusiasts! I’m Lauren Shippen, professional writer, who absolutely has brought Tumblr-speak into her real spoken life.

Cher: And I’m Cher McAnelly, Head of Entertainment at Tumblr. And student at Tumblr University.

Lauren: And this is Dashboard Diaries, a podcast for you – the folks who are in this internet bunker with us. We talk about what’s going on in our favorite hell site, get into what we like to call “tumbl-lore,” do fandom deep dives, and share the times when we’ve gone feral over a new ship.

And we have a really, really fun guest for you all later. But first, let’s do some Dashboard Confessionals.

[guitar riff]

Cher, what do you have from the archives for us this month?

Cher: So, I have two posts, both of which I feel very much tie in with the topic of the episode today. So, I couldn’t decide between the two. Both of which I re-blogged in July 2015. So, the first one is from user: officalcrow. It’s a text post that says “To my doctor after getting laser eye surgery: So, how do I shoot them?”

Lauren: (laughs) That’s very good.

Cher: The next one is very, very relevant I think to this episode. It is a screenshot of a YouTube video that says, “New computer terms:” and then it lists out “Avatar #trolling and meme.” And it’s from user: literallysame. Which I think, yeah, ties in really well with the focus of our episode today. What do you have for us today, Lauren?

Lauren: So, I have a post from, let’s see, 2014 from user: digitaltits. The post is a little bit like ... the one that I’m going to re-blog the post formatting is a little bit messed up because it’s such an old post and the original poster has since deleted the post I think. So, anyway ... but it says, “Mood. *white kid from ‘90s TV show on bed throwing baseball up in the air and catching it while staring at the ceiling*” And that’s just such a specific mood. And I know exactly what this user is talking about. And I totally feel that mood often.

Cher: As do I. It really captures the essence of the moment. (laughs)

Lauren: It really does. It’s amazing what language can do.

Cher: We love language!

[game show trill]

Lauren: So, this month we have a very, very special guest with us. We have Gretchen McColloch who is the host of the Lingthusiasm Podcast and Internet Linguist, and author of, “Because Internet.” Which I think has to be my favorite book about the internet that I’ve ever read. Thank you so much for joining us, Gretchen!

Gretchen: Thank you so much for having me!

Lauren: What is an internet linguist and how on earth did you get into that as a profession?

Gretchen: So, I spend a lot of time on the internet. (laughs) And also I think like many linguists I can’t really turn that linguist part of my brain off. So, if I am at a party or just talking to someone I’m always sort of analyzing bits about how they talk. And by the end of this podcast I’m going to have a whole report for you.

Lauren: Oh no!

(laughter)

Gretchen: Nothing but good things, I promise. So, spending a lot of time online also means that I wanted to know more about how people were using language online. I also think of myself as an internet linguist as in a linguist FOR internet people. Because I started my blog, which is called All Things Linguistic on Tumblr back in 2012, during the first era of when Tumblr was cool. And I started it when I was in grad school for linguistics and I was feeling myself sort of inching further and further out of that ivory tower and also feeling like I wanted to retain that sense of connection that I’d felt with linguistics when I was discovering it as a high school student and reading pop linguistic books and feeling like this really had this very direct applicability to my everyday life.

So, doing pop linguistics or linguistics communication or internet linguistics is also a way for me of retaining that connection and being a linguist FOR the people of the internet or OF the people of the internet in addition to doing it on the language that’s found online.

Lauren: I love that. So, you started this blog on Tumblr. Was that the first time you sort of got on Tumblr was to make that blog? Or did you have some familiarity with the platform previously?

Gretchen: (laughs) You know what? No one has ever asked me that question and it’s such a good question!

Lauren: Oh my gosh!

Gretchen: It was NOT my first time on Tumblr. (laughs)

Cher: Ooh! What brought you to Tumblr?

Gretchen: So, do you remember the era of ... there was the “what should we call me” Tumblr era where it was ... a lot of it was very student-y. You know? “When I’m late for class ...” and then there’d be a gif. And then there would be all these sort of extra single serving Tumblrs that I think of like single topic Tumblrs that would be about a specific thing. And then there were all these different versions of those. And there were all of these advice animal Tumblrs that would be like a specific domain.

So, the first Tumblr that I was involved with was some other linguistics undergraduate students and I collaborated ... Philosoraptor was probably the best known but there was like Philosophy this and History major that or whatever. And so we decided that the mascot for linguistics needed to be the Lingcod.

Lauren: Oh my god! I remember this blog!

Gretchen: Wait!? You saw the Linguistics Lingcod back in the day? That was us!

Lauren: That’s amazing.

Cher: Oh my god.

Lauren: Oh my COD.

Gretchen: Oh my cod! Exactly. So, we found this truly horrendous picture of a fish. This is not a pretty fish. It’s got these big teeth and it’s got this sort of open jaw. (laughs) We found this truly horrendous picture of a lingcod. And we made some captions for it and we made this single serving Tumblr. I bet Linguistics Lingcod is probably still there. Someone has probably forgotten the login. I don’t know if I actually ...

Cher: I can get you back in.

Gretchen: (laughter)

Cher: I have that power.

Gretchen: Oh my god! (laughs) There were other linguist advice animal memes that were more popular than us.

Lauren: Oh my god. Really?

Gretchen: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah. We were a bunch of Canadian undergrad students. And so Linguist Lioness was also around for a little bit. But the really popular was one Linguistics Llama.

Cher: Oh my gosh.

Lauren: I do remember Linguistics Llama, too, actually. YES.

Gretchen: Linguistics Llama. We’ve been in the same [inaudible 00:07:18] of the internet for a long time, Lauren. I just have that feeling.

Lauren: Obviously.

Cher: Oh my gosh.

Gretchen: And Linguistics Llama was not by me or my friends. And it had one of those backgrounds with the spiral colors and it had a scarf which was very classy of it. And I did ultimately ... I don’t know if IRL but I definitely exchanged Tumblr DM’s with the guy who ran the Linguistics Llama account who was an undergrad at NYU or somewhere like that. And so I had been aware of Tumblr for a couple of years before that from the meme perspective.

Lauren: That’s fantastic!

Cher: I love the concept of a single serving Tumblr. Or how each post is its own serving, snack, bite or whatever it is ... bite sized post.

Gretchen: And you still see these sort of themed Tumblrs, especially these days a lot of Tumblrs ... There’s the Tumblr that makes a calligraphy version of the post.

Lauren: Yes! Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know exactly what you’re talking about.

Gretchen: Or there’s the haiku bot Tumblr that re-blogs posts that have accidentally a haiku in them. These days a lot of those single serving Tumblrs are a bit more interactive. But you still see ones that are like, “I’m just posting things on one topic” and have this very narrowly constrained post type and they’ll pick a type of post. That was partly why I picked the name All Things Linguistic because I was like I want this to be very clear that this is a linguistics Tumblr. And that I’m going to post about not one specific area of linguistics, that’s what the word “all” means. (laughs)

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: (laughs) But that it’s sort of all around that. I didn’t really realize despite ... so, I knew about these single serving Tumblrs and the linguistic advice animals. But I didn’t really know that there were people who were hanging out in the linguistics tag on Tumblr until I got on there and I saw people re-blogging my post and them tagging it “linguistics” and seeing some of the other posts on there. So, then I was like, “Oh, there’s a whole community here that I could be a part of. It’s not just sort of randomly whatever is going on.” But yeah, I picked Tumblr because I knew how the interface worked from the back in the day Linguistics Lingcod.

Lauren: That’s amazing. I love that you’ve always been doing linguistics on Tumblr. That that’s sort of always been your relationship to it. And we like to think of Tumblr as this very niche unique place in terms of how we talk to each other and the memes that we have and sort of the internal language we have. In all of the online spaces that you’ve been in do you feel like Tumblr does have sort of a unique language unto itself?

Gretchen: I remember a couple of years ago on Twitter, maybe 2018, 2019, there were all of these Twitter memes that were coming up. And I was like, I saw these on Tumblr eight years ago! (laughter)

Cher: Yep.

Gretchen: There was that period where it was like, oh, okay, so the Twitter people have discovered Spiders George. That’s cool.

Cher: [crosstalk 00:10:17]

Gretchen: I was just about to make the same reference! “Do not cite the dark magic to me which I was there when it happened!”

(laughter)

Cher: Exactly.

Lauren: That shared language really is such a huge part of the Tumblr experience.

Gretchen: That’s the thing. You have this sort of shared vocabulary. A couple of things that I think are really interesting about Tumblr is that, one, is the half life of posts is so much incredibly longer.

Lauren: Yeah! Oh, interesting.

Gretchen: And the half life of a tweet – especially when I first joined Twitter which was actually also in 2012 but a little bit later in 2012. It was like six months later. Which felt like an eon because i was like, “I understand internet platforms now. I’m going to join all of them.” But the half life of tweets when I joined was maybe like an hour or two. And then Twitter started putting their thumb on the algorithm a little bit more and the half life of a tweet became more like six hours or twelve hours of if this tweet gets so legs it’s going to keep going and keep giving you notifications a day or two in. But the half life of a post on Tumblr. I mean, first of all, even a post that’s not very popular that’s only liked by a few of your friends or your mutual’s kind of thing is still like 12 hours. Because people catch up on their whole dash.

Cher: [crosstalk 00:11:28]

Gretchen: I was gonna say. Do you have stats on this?

Cher: I do! I have a fun metric. About 1/3 of engagement on Tumblr posts happens 30+ days after posting.

Gretchen: Yeah! Yeah!

Lauren: That’s wild.

Gretchen: I totally buy it. Especially if you just make a post that’s a little update for your mutual’s or something it’s probably not going to have a ton of engagement later but any sort of post that gets a re-blog or two – it just lasts so much longer. I’ve had posts that I made this post five years ago but it’s still going around.

Lauren: Absolutely.

Cher: It’s always funny to go by on your dashboard that you posted years ago.

Gretchen: Yeah!

Lauren: That happens to me sometimes on my ... I’ve got a public facing Tumblr and then my real Tumblr and every now and then on my real Tumblr dash I’ll see my own post from my public facing Tumblr from eight months ago kind of cross my dash. And that’s always such a strange moment. Especially since I think that Tumblr users are very good at digging up really old stuff somehow and then all of a sudden circulating a post a year after the fact. And I think that this can mean that certain things become sort of baffling popular. I kind of wanted to get your perspective on this, Gretchen – around why certain memes or ... I think the word “blorbo” especially is a great example of this ... why certain words catch on when others don’t. What makes something sort of become part of the permanent lexicon versus something that just gets passed around for a couple of months?

Gretchen: Yeah. I think there’s sort of two parts to that. One is this question of why do posts last so much longer? And the fact that posts last so much longer is a contributor to Tumblr having more of a culture because if you missed it the first time around you have so many more opportunities to see it. Whereas sometimes on a faster moving social network – I’m thinking of sort of the Twitter family of networks. So, Twitter, Blue Sky, Mastodon, all of those ones that are sort of very short text post based. You can show up after six hours and Bean Dad has happened and you’re like, “What!? I’ve missed all of this!?” Whereas on Tumblr things don’t show up on your dash quite as quickly. But [crosstalk 00:13:45] a lot longer.

I think that’s partly related to the queue feature. The queue feature is really a driver of that. Because people put posts in their queues and then they resurface a week later, a month later, three months later, six months later and partly that person still looks like they’re active and maybe some of the posts they’re making are live. But also they can resurface their post that they saw six months ago and it shows up on your dash now and maybe you decide to re-blog it or you decide to put it in your queue and this extends the half life yet again.

Lauren: That makes a lot of sense.

Gretchen: Other platforms really don’t have that ... on something like Word Press ... Which Word Press is fine. I use Word Press for my professional website. And I can schedule posts there. But what I can’t do is automatically put them in this sort of system that’s going to doll them out without me having to think about it. I have to say, “This post goes up next Tuesday at 2PM.” I can’t say, “Just put it up at some point in the future, whenever you run out of other stuff to put up.”

Lauren: Yeah. I love and use the queue feature. I haven’t really thought about it in that way before.

Cher: And I love how Tumblr users will often tag their queued posts. And they have all these fun little puns. “This one’s for queue,” or whatever it is and they post those ... there’s a whole queue tag ... I don’t know ... subgenre.

Gretchen: Or like, “You’re a queue-tie” or something like that. Yeah.

Cher: Exactly!

Gretchen: The queue is a big factor for that. But also the scheduling thing. Because some posts get tied to specific days and times. So, Julius Caesar Ides of March stuff going up around the Ides of March or like the September song, 21st of September, do you remember? This type of stuff. Stuff that gets tied to a specific day, people see it the day after and they go, oh, damn, I missed the window to put it up. I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to schedule this for this day next year.

Lauren: Yes!

Gretchen: Because I’ve done that!

Lauren: Me too!

Gretchen: I missed my window! Okay, I’ll just schedule it for next year with this idea that I’m still going to be here, people are still going to see it next year. Putting it into the future that way because it’s a way of participating in the culture. And also the idea of have I re-blogged this post a few years ago, yep, maybe sure, I don’t care, I’m re-blogging it again because I’m seeing it.

Cher: Yep. Neil banging out the tunes, April 13th.

Gretchen: Yes. Yeah.

Lauren: Right. All of these real holidays and all of these holidays that Tumblr has made up, or even days of the week memes! You know? Every fandom sort of has it. Whatever Wednesday. Yeah, that keeps a specific kind of culture alive.

Gretchen: That part keeps it sort of going. I think the tags on Tumblr also contribute sometimes to posts getting revived again after a longer period. Because when you’re browsing for tags ... let’s say you just got into a show for the first time and you’re like, “Oh, what have other people posted? I want to re-post some gifs.” So, you go into the tag for that show and you filter for gifs and you start re-blogging them. And some of those people may have put those gifs up years ago. Depending on when the show came out. But you’re re-blogging them now because you’re browsing via tags and looking for stuff to put on your blog. That’s a kind of behavior that you don’t see ... there are other platforms that have tags but Instagram has hash tags and people browse with them but they have a very impoverished post sharing ability. You can really only do it in your story and then it disappears after 24 hours and so you don’t get anything like a re-blog culture.

Twitter has a re-tweet culture and all the sort of Twitter family of networks. I’m on Blue Sky these days, baby. (laughs) And they have a re-tweet culture but they don’t have this “I’m gonna go find this and re-tweet all these tweets that are super old,” because they feature the timestamp very prominently on the tweet and so this idea of if you’re re-tweeting something that’s a week old it’s like, “Well, where were you?” Tumblr doesn’t feature timestamps very prominently anywhere on the posts. And so every post exists in this sort of eternal present.

Lauren: I hadn’t thought about the prominence of the timestamp being such a driving feature. But you’re totally right. I think that I’ll definitely get into a TV show from ten years ago and I’ll go and re-blog a bunch of gif sets from ten years ago because that’s when the fandom was most active. And I think that’s what Tumblr is for, right, is keeping those communities alive perpetually.

Gretchen: Tumblr is also unique as far as internet platforms go because in the early days of the internet this was a very normal thing to do – to try and meet people online based around a common interest. But this is much less common in the present day internet and really since the internet became mainstream. And sort of when only a few people were online you had to figure out a way to try to get to know people online. Because your friends and your neighbors and your family aren’t going to be online so you have to figure out how you’re going to meet people. And that was often very interest based, like Use Net is all based on interest groups.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: But then when the internet became more mainstream you have things like Facebook which are all based on your contacts that you know IRL. Maybe you get to know people through a Facebook group or something but by and large Facebook is designed to connect you with people you already know. That’s this very sort of mainstream style of internet behavior. Twitter has sort of got this combination of things where in some cases people you already know but in many cases it’s people who are like part of maybe a professional community or an interest type of community – but in a very loose sense. Right? So, it will be people who are romance authors are a big group on Twitter or people in tech in various ways are a big group on Twitter. Or like Linguist Twitter was a corner of Twitter that’s somewhat decimated now, which had overlap with other academic areas and this type of thing.

So, you sort of had a nebulous interest group but it was hard to find them because people weren’t necessarily using a tag to organize that. You just had to sort of start with some people and then go through their follower list and following list. Tumblr also doesn’t surface who you follow or who follows you automatically. You can do it optionally. I’ve always turned it off. And you can’t see how many followers someone has. And so you can’t follow a social graph to find people to follow. You have to look at tags or who people are re-blogging. Those are sort of your only options to find other people on Tumblr.

Lauren: Yeah. I mean, in terms of how that drives language and shifts and how people are speaking online, I think in my head I’m imagining if I am on Facebook and I’m mostly interacting with the people from my real life or I’m on Twitter and I’m mostly interacting with podcasters or writers, then I am mostly engaging with people who are quite similar to me whereas on Tumblr I’m engaging with all kinds of people. And does that drive language faster or more differently if you are sort of engaging with a bunch of different types of people versus the people sort of more insularly in your circle?

Gretchen: I am so delighted you asked. There have been studies on this! (laughs)

Lauren: Ooh!

Gretchen: A lot of the work on this has happened through Twitter because Twitter has an API that’s really good for downloading this type of data. There have been a few masters thesises about Tumblr linguistics which are very cool. And their authors are people who just use Tumblr and collect some data. But if you want to study Tumblr you have to do a sort of participant ethnography. You can’t just download a fire hose of a whole bunch of posts because that capacity doesn’t exist on a technical level. You could use the API to download one person’s Tumblr blog but what would be the point of that?

Lauren: Right.

(laughter)

Gretchen: Whereas on Twitter, back before they killed this, but you could hook up to the whole fire hose and you could make a whole social network graph of who is following who and so you could get a sense of approximately who was seeing what. So, a lot of the internet language research has been done on Twitter not because everyone is on Twitter because very much everyone is not. But because it’s this very convenient sample that has this very convenient way of analyzing it.

So, this particular study that I’m thinking of finds that the way we adopt new words is this balance between strong ties and weak ties. Social theory – strong ties are people where you have a lot of acquaintances in common, friends and acquaintances in common. You know a lot of people in common very densely imbedded in your social network. And in many cases people spend more time with their strong ties because that’s how they get introduced to your other friends, right? So, a lot of people’s partner is a strong tie, or their best friend is a strong tie, because that person also knows a bunch of your friends because you probably introduce them to each other or you met as part of a friend group. And so you have all these friends in common.

And then your weak ties are people that you don’t have any or very many friends in common with. And so you’re maybe likely to see them less often but not necessarily. So, let’s say a barista at your favorite coffee shop who maybe you go there twice a week and you see them regularly, more often than some of your friends maybe, but you don’t actually have any friends in common with that barista.

So, weak ties are a really important source of new information to a social network. Studies have shown that you are more likely to get a job through a weak tie.

Lauren: Interesting!

Gretchen: Because your friends already know everything you know. Basically. Whereas your weak ties, especially a weak tie who is sometimes a friend of a friend – your friends may not have a job that they could give you but they might know someone who has a job they could give you or like your acquaintance may know someone. And you have a much larger circle of acquaintances than you do close friends just because that’s how time works. (laughs)

So, there’s a very interesting study that I cited because internet, I can’t remember the author but if anyone wants to go look up the citation you can do that, that did a sort of network model analysis of what if you had a social network that was all strong ties? So, this is your sort of classic sitcom style social network where everybody is friends with everybody else. Or you have a really tiny town and everybody in the town knows everybody. There’s 100 people on this island and they all have known each other for their entire lives.

And in this situation, the language situation rapidly becomes very stable. There isn’t a lot of change in the language situation because where is that change coming from? We’ve all been talking to each other our entire lives. Someone would have to invent a new form spontaneously which is less likely than someone just picking something up from somewhere else and transmitting it.

Conversely, a network that’s all weak ties ... so you can think of something like an airport where nobody really knows each other. You’re just chatting with the person next to you in line and you never really become friends after that. Nothing ever becomes predominant in a community because there’s no reinforcement mechanism for anything. Everyone is just talking differently from each other but there’s no way for really anything to really spread.

What they’ve found is that most social networks have a mix of strong and weak ties. And a weak tie is more likely to introduce a new linguistic form you haven’t encountered yet. Because they have a different social network to you. Largely. But you’re more likely to start using and picking up a form if someone who is one of your strong ties uses it.

Cher: Have you noticed any difference in kind of communication, like the linguistic use or slang use or whatever it might be, on Tumblr within different communities that you might be a part of on Tumblr?

Gretchen: One of the things that I think about from this is that like Facebook has sort of more strong ties than weak ties. And I feel like it is less linguistically innovative than Twitter is, or than Twitter used to be back in its heyday. Because Twitter had a lot more sources of new information, people you didn’t already know IRL. And so there were way more sources of new stuff.

For Tumblr, I’m trying to think about ... I feel like there’s less of an ability to get a gestalt of the entire site because your own personal network experience is so specific. Sometimes I see ... there was a past that went around a little while ago that was this, “I cannot stand these parodies of modern major [inaudible 00:26:42] original.” And this post was getting like 10K notes in its first 24 hours. Three different people who are on my dash who I’m pretty sure didn’t know each other had all re-blogged it separately from different people. And I then went and checked the timestamp and I was like, oh, this post is 24 hours old and it’s just spreading everywhere.

I think people don’t have necessarily the same hesitation around, “I’m going to re-share this even though it’s already been in my feed,” because then the person that I re-blogged it from will just treat that as a compliment and not treat it as, “well, that’s kind of boring.” On Twitter I tend to not re-tweet a tweet if it’s too popular because then I’m like, “Yeah, that’s boring, that’s yesterday’s news.” That’s been done, everyone has seen this already.

Whereas on Tumblr a post has 100K notes and I’m like, yeah, sure I’m still re-blogging it, this was quality.

Cher: And you can re-blog as many things, I mean, up to our post limit, as you want and still your followers would be excited to have you re-blogging or re-posting 250 things in a day. Versus being like, “Oh my gosh, that’s a lot.”

Gretchen: Yeah. So, there’s a couple interesting mechanisms around re-blogging. It’s very common to re-blog without commentary or re-blog with just a few bits in the tags on Tumblr. And then if your tags are witty enough or incisive enough someone else might promote them and you passed peer review.

Cher: Yes.

Lauren: Yep!

Gretchen: And so this is a mechanism of saying which things ... fewer posts get circulated more on Tumblr. They get circulated more and for longer. So, this is another side of the Tumblr has a more cohesive culture because you’re more likely to have seen the same post as other people because they circulate so much. And I remember when I first joined Twitter it was very rare to see a tweet that had more than 100 re-tweets. Now they’ve been putting their thumb on the algorithm more, you do see these very popular tweets. But at the time it was already very common to see Tumblr posts with five digits or six digits of notes. That’s always been a part of Tumblr culture I think.

Cher: Why do you think the Tumblr community gravitates towards captioning or talking in the tags versus in the caption section? It’s one of my favorite things about the platform and the way users engage but it’s always interested me how that sort of came about.

Gretchen: The commentary that I’ve seen and I sort of agree with this is that because ... Tumblr’s re-blog culture preserves the entire chain. So, if you say something in the tags then if somebody wants to re-blog the post from you they can just say their own things in the tags and they don’t have to preserve what you’ve said. If you say something in the comment field then if someone wants to re-blog the post from you they’ve got to preserve your comments. And sometimes I’ve seen a post that has three really interesting comments and then someone said something kind of boring and I will go back up that chain and re-blog the version without their boring addition, even if their boring addition was my friend.

Lauren: Same!

Cher: Yep.

Gretchen: So, if you’re worried that someone is going to be like, oh, I’ll have to go back up the re-blog chain and re-blog this post without your boring addition, you’re like, I’m just going to put this in the tags, that’s polite. That’s sort of discreet. And tags are also a way of talking primarily to your followers because if someone re-blogs that post from you they’re not going to see it. Their followers aren’t going to see it. So, it’s a way of having a sort of private, or not quite private, but like a more intimate level of conversation at the same time as you’re participating in this sort of almost site-wide culture of these bigger posts that have lots of stuff on them – you can sort of do that in the replies.

I also think that an underrated technological affordance of these tags is that Tumblr tags support spaces. Because Tumblr has a tags field and if you tag a post on Twitter or Instagram you have to write your hash tags without spaces. I’m saying hash tags on this platform but on Tumblr they’re tags. You have to write them without spaces. So, this puts a natural limit on how many tags and how long of tags you can write because no one wants to read this seven words all smooshed together with no spaces. That’s kind of obnoxious. Whereas with Tumblr tags you’ve got spaces in it so you can just read it like a normal thing. And also that tags on re-blogs aren’t searchable except for like if you’re indexing a post on your own blog. So, you can tag something that has your queue tag and then you can find your own queue tag. But otherwise they don’t become searchable and so the tags ... they’re sort of useless on a practical level which means you can write commentary in them because they’re not actually trying to do something practical.

And it’s kind of obnoxious SEO behavior to put too many tags in your post on Twitter or Instagram where they are readily searchable. Because you can’t actually search tags on Tumblr, at least not in a re-blog very well, it’s like, well yeah, this is a space for commentary instead. There’s also a fannish culture because Tumblr is very fannish of using tags for commentary on archive of our own on AO3.

Lauren: That’s such a good point!

Gretchen: AO3 tags have this mixture of commentary tag and functional tag that Tumblr tags also have. And so I would wager that most people on Tumblr know what archive of our own is. Whereas on sites like Twitter or Instagram some people do, depending on your subculture, but it’s less of a direct influence probably.

Lauren: Do you think that’s something that AO3 took from Tumblr, because a lot of those users overlap, that that’s why that happened on AO3?

Gretchen: I think a lot of them overlap but I think the directionality may be in the other direction.

Lauren: Interesting!

Gretchen: Because ... so, archive of our own was founded in I wanna say 2005.

Lauren: Yeah, yeah, I think you’re right. It definitely was sort of as fanfic.net was ... they sort of crossed paths a little bit.

Gretchen: Yeah, ‘cause an analogy that I really like making is that AO3 is actually very similar in size to the English Wikipedia ... in terms of like how long its existed and how many bytes of words are on both. They are very similar in size.

Lauren: That’s nuts! (laughs)

Gretchen: And in terms of this sort of skewed long tail ratio of how many people write on them versus how many people read on them, I think also quite similar.

Lauren: Yeah! Right, a small percentage of people are contributing of the people who are reading. Yeah.

Gretchen: I actually wrote an article for Wired a number of years ago when AO3 was winning the Hugo about how we should be ... because a lot of tech ink has been spilled about here’s how great Wikipedia is and here’s what we all could be learning about it. And not nearly as much has been spilled about here’s how great AO3 is and here’s what we could be learning about it. Even though they have very similar sorts of pedigrees. And I wrote a piece for wired that was like, “Here’s why AO3 is so neat,” and interviewed a couple of the tag wranglers to talk about AO3’s tagging system and how it works in the backend with a lot of volunteer labor to make it useable for users.

Yeah, I just think that AO3’s tagging system and it had this sort of tag wrangling open field you can do your commentary tags and you can also do your sorting tags in the same field. This was influenced by fannish practice on earlier social platforms. I wasn’t really on Live Journal but a lot of people were on Live Journal. If somebody knows more about Live Journal’s tagging practice I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an influence there. Also on other fan fic sites for sure.

Lauren: Yeah. The tagging on AO3 is so interesting too because you’ve got your functional tags like Tumblr has, too, where you’re putting it to the people find it in a particular search or to categorize your own profile or whatever. And then there’s the commentary tags and then AO3 has this weird in-between space that I don’t see on Tumblr as much which is fandom specific tags that sort of begin as commentary and then become actual sortable tags. Like “such and such character is an idiot,” or whatever. These things that sort of become fanon and therefore sort of get adopted sort of by the tag wranglers.

Gretchen: Like “dead dove do not eat” kind of thing.

Lauren: Right. Exactly! Yeah. Which is something I first encountered on Tumblr in the way it was used. Which is interesting ...

Gretchen: I think there’s some extent to which people do this on their personal Tumblrs. I’m thinking of all these sort of fun creative queue tags which may have started out as like, “Oh, I’m just doing this sort of joke,” and then sometimes they carry on. My tag for internet language on All Things Linguistic is still “Language on the interwebs,” because I tagged a post that in 2012 and then I was like, I guess this is what I’m using for this tag now. I have to go back and check because it’s like did I spell interwebs with an “s” or a zed? I have to check every time. Because I was just joking! But I’m still doing this!?

(laughter)

Lauren: That’s awesome.

Gretchen: There’s over 100 posts in that tag because there’s so many things.

Lauren: Is it an “s” or a “z?”

Gretchen: Look, I don’t know. I’d have to check! I think it’s an “s.” But I have actually tagged several ... some posts I’ve tagged with both because I couldn’t remember. So, if you click on one and you’re like, “there’s not any posts in here,” just click on the other one and see if you’ll get more.

Lauren: I totally have ... my playlist tag I always just tag “playlist” and “playlists,” because I can never remember which one it is that I used.

Cher: Sometimes I’ll be typing what I think is an original sentence as a tag and it will auto complete for me as ... someone has also typed out this similarly chaotic or unhinged sentence at some point.

Lauren: The great Tumblr hive mind.

Gretchen: I’ve always wanted to do a study of Tumblr tags. Cher, if there’s way you can hook us up with this data maybe this is a possibility, because it’s so hard to do data on anything in Tumblr. But also maybe Tumblr users would find this creepy so maybe we should just never do this. There was a meme that was going around ... I haven’t seen it in the last five years or so but there was this style of post that was going around for a while that would list five words and it would be “type these words into your tag field and fill in your tag that auto completes from them.”

Lauren: Yes!

Gretchen: So, it would be a list of colors or something ... when you tag something green what was that tag?

Lauren: Yes, I love those posts because it always brings up stuff that you completely forgot about, about your own blog. You know?

Gretchen: And I always thought that if there was a way of scraping all the tags from a post, a post like that would be a really interesting one to do this weird cross section of tags on Tumblr. It would be a biased sample but it would be biased in a very different way compared to using the tags that are searchable tags.

Cher: And we can absolutely hook you up with that data, Gretchen. So, just let me know what info you want, what data you want, and we can [crosstalk 00:37:38].

Gretchen: Where were you when I was writing!? Because [crosstalk 00:37:43]

Lauren: You need to make another book!

Cher: Yeah, I’m here for the sequel, Gretchen. I’ve got you. [crosstalk 00:37:53]

Gretchen: I was joking for a while that my next book would be called “Despite Internet,” which is how I wrote a book despite all the distractions online.

Cher: Oh my gosh. YES.

Lauren: I love that. What a great idea!

Gretchen: If I ever write a memoir ... (laughs)

Lauren: Yes, absolutely. I know that we are coming to the end of our time here. So, as a final fun question – do you have a favorite Tumblr linguistic quirk or meme or something that just has brought you a lot of joy on Tumblr as a linguist?

Gretchen: Oh man, how do I choose? They’re all my children! (laughs)

Cher: You can pick a few.

Lauren: Yes. Top three.

Gretchen: I’ve got this whole book that I wrote! (laughs) So, I’m going to pick a classic. I relaly like the style of what I have called stylized verbal incoherence mirroring emotional incoherence.

Lauren: Ooh!

Cher: Beatifully put.

Gretchen: (laughs)

Cher: Put very coherently.

Gretchen: And the point is that it’s stylized and so you are actually doing it on purpose, it’s not just sort of random key smash type things. But the Tumblr minimalist style, which as far as I can tell was initially most popular on Tumblr of lowercasing things, not using a lot of punctuation, using maybe line breaks only or periods as a way of breaking things up but not using a whole bunch of other punctuation. There’s this classic Tumblr post that’s like, “Tumblr, language is so smooth, it’s like a jungle river, with no periods, nothing stops here.” I’m not memorizing it that well and I haven’t seen it go around my dash that much in recent years. But there was a while when I was seeing it every week.

Lauren: I know exactly what post you’re talking about.

Cher: Yeah.

Gretchen: We can dig this up and re-blog it, right?

Lauren: For sure.

Gretchen: What I loved about it was the meta commentary on the reflection about a style that already existed that other people were doing that was also doing this self referentially and that people were spreading it. One of the reasons why Tumblr becomes this source of linguistic innovation is that Tumblr users love commenting about their own linguistic innovation. And then spreading those posts that comment on it. So, you see all these posts that will be like, “Oh yeah, I’m doing this.” And this swift like a jungle river post got posted, re-blogged so many times. And so even if you weren’t seeing that style initially, you would see the post that was commenting about it and go maybe this is something that I might want to do. This is something that other people seem to recognize and I think that the re-blog culture and the number of notes gives these observations a sense of sort of authenticity or gravitas or just this sense that they’ve passed peer review.

Other Tumblr users also think that this is the case because they’ve re-posted it. Because they re-blogged it. And if someone was making an observation about Tumblr culture or Tumblr language that wasn’t especially trenchant it just sort of sinks and vanishes without a trace. It’s these ones that get tens and hundreds of thousands of notes where people are like, yeah, I agree with this, I cosign this, I believe this. And I think that’s why stuff spreads because Tumblr users like that meta commentary and the ones that feel real keep getting passed around.

Lauren: Absolutely. I think that’s a perfect bow to put on the whole conversation. Gretchen, thank you so much for coming to talk to us about this. If people want to follow you online and learn more about this stuff – where can they find you?

Gretchen: Thank you so much for having me. I am at GretchenMcCulloch.com – my podcast is Lingthusiasm. It’s also @lingthusiasm on Tumblr. My Tumblr is @allthingslinguistic and my book about internet language is called “Because Internet.”

[gentle music]

Cher: What has you in your feels this week, Lauren?

Lauren: So, I have two quick in my feels things. The first is My Lady Jane on Amazon Prime, which is a new TV show. And without saying too much about it, because I sort of went in not really knowing anything and was really delighted, it just reminds me of the peak CW shows from the late 2000s when it was still the WB into sort of the mid 20-teens. Just everything about it feels like a CW show from 2013 and I really have been missing that on my television. So, that’s been bringing me lots of joy.

And then my daily podcast that I’ve been doing for the past year, Breaker Whiskey, is coming to a close tomorrow as of this recording, by the time this episode comes out it will have been ... the first year will have been over for a week. There’s been some really fun posts on Tumblr about it. About people getting excited for the finale. About people reacting to teh things that are happening. And it’s a very small group of people but it’s just always amazing when there is any Tumblr fandom at all for anything I make. And so that has been making me very, very happy this last week.

What about you, Cher? What’s got you in your feels?

Cher: I am having a lot of emotions, Lauren, about House of the Dragon. Do you watch?

Lauren: I don’t.

Cher: In my opinion, everyone especially the dragons should live forever. And that’s just what I’m going to say about it.

Lauren: Okay. Got you. [inaudible 00:43:12]

Cher: That is very much not the topic of the show. (laughs) The show is about how the dragons went extinct and they’re starting to show us and as it turns out I don’t want to know, Lauren!

Lauren: Oh no!

Cher: The dragons are all baby girls. They’re all poor little meow-meows. And they should be protected at all costs.

Lauren: And I’m Lauren Shippen, and you can find me at TheLaurenShippen.Tumblr.com.

Cher: And I’m Cher McAnelly and you can find me at OverChers.Tumblr.com.

Cher: This has been Dashboard Diaries. And ...

[outtro music]

Lauren: May your anons always be loving.

Cher: Your dash always refreshed.

Lauren: Your gifs always be loading.

Cher: And your ships always canon.

Lauren: May the fics you’re reading always be finished.

Cher: And the answers you seek always in the re-blogs.

Lauren: Thanks for scrolling with us!

Every Tumblr user knows that we Tumblrinas use language a little differently. We're not like other social media users. We're weird. We're weirdos. And this month, we have actual linguist Gretchen McCulloch (@allthingslinguistic) on to talk about it!! Plus: House of the Dragon dragon-related feelings and throwing a ball in the air as you lay on your bed like a 90s teen character.

Credits and transcript in our reblog. You can find transcripts for this, and every other episode, here.

Find the posts discussed in this episode in this tag!

#DD 40 #transcript

310 notes · View notes

anhed-nia · 4 years ago

Text

BLOGTOBER PRE-GAME 9/30/2020: 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE/CONFESSIONAL (2019)

Spoiler alert. Or whatever. It’s not going to matter, you don’t care.

So, I've been away for a minute. Just about any reason to be away from Tumblr is probably a good reason, but I have an especially good one. I'm finally working on a "real" writing project, which demands, and deserves, all of my attention. My social media abstinence isn't just a matter of time management, though. Once I had a long term obligation on my plate, I became very aware of how the short term satisfaction I get from posting mindless rants was eating away at the fuel I have available for sustained efforts. When I wind myself up with a 500-1000 word blog post, it generates a lot of electricity, but I blow it all as soon as I experience the catharsis of posting it, and I'm further pacified by ego-stroking likes and reblogs. Not to sound like a sanctimonious luddite--I mean, I'm still here, after all!--but it turns out that the staying focused on the long haul has been surprisingly revivifying. In fact, I haven't been talking about my big fancy project for the same reason; I don't want to lose any of the juice I've been storing up by wasting it on the shallow pleasure of describing it. Also such things should probably be somewhat confidential until they're approaching the publishing stage, but I digress! There is an actual reason I'm saying all this, that has more to do with this blog.

(Don’t get all excited, I’m not doing EVIL ED right now, I just need a relatable image.)

As I got deeper into my experience of "real" film writing, I started to reflect on the meaning of my personal writing. Like, the point of it. I tend to write in a sweaty, compulsive, sadomasochistic haze, in which I'm sometimes hyperbolically generous, and sometimes--perhaps more often, unfortunately--as nasty as humanly possible. Sometimes the movies deserve it, when they're lazy, pretentious, or otherwise demonstrate an open contempt for the audience aka ME. Often, though, I'm just creating an opportunity to vent my generalized rage and frustration. That can be very entertaining for myself and (hopefully) my teensy-but-devoted readership, but lately I've asked myself whether there isn't some negative tradeoff for all this amusement. In this phase of my life, it's reasonable to assume I'll make more and more friends and acquaintances who create things I don't always care for, but I don't necessarily think they deserve to be abused for it. As much as I have a right to say whatever I want, technically, I'd be embarrassed if I were caught just jacking myself off by making fun of their work in public. And more to the point, I don't necessarily want to contribute to the growing atmosphere in which people feel more afraid to try and fail, because the public so commonly misidentifies sarcasm and mean-spiritedness as intelligence and superiority, and that form of petty darkness spreads across the internet a lot faster than a movie can reach a wider audience. After all, I'm in the process of potentially turning myself into one of those well-meaning failures right now. I could stand to be a little more deliberate about how I speak, and about what, in general.

My father is an art critic, and once in an extra petulant moment, teenage-me asked him in an accusative tone what he thought the point of his profession was. He replied calmly that he wouldn't publish any comment that he didn't think the artist could make use of somehow. I don't know if he always stuck to that policy, but the thought sure stuck with me.

So anyway, over the last few months I've been giving myself a bit of an attitude adjustment, through a combination of personal reflection, and hard work on something meaningful/not for the internet. I've been feeling all proud of myself and shit, but today reminded me that any path to enlightenment is always marked by setbacks, doubt, and temptation. For today, in complete innocence (or at least a melange of innocence and ignorance, as I very much invite this type of problem), I managed to watch TWO (2) movies about an academic film-cum-psychology project, focused on a gang of college buddies who inevitably reveal what bad people they are under the unique conditions of the project, and then the project turns out to be run NOT by its presumed-dead originator, but by the originator's even-crazier lover. It's amazing how particular something can be, and still be utterly obvious and cliche. In my defense, I really tried to turn the second movie off, because it was...just instantly terrible, but the seed of suspicion had taken root--is this randomly selected movie ACTUALLY EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE PREVIOUS MOVIE?--and I just had to find out if this could be true. I suffered, deliberately, for another hour and a half, to confirm my awful hunch. I don't know how I would have felt if I had turned out to be wrong (better? worse?), but I don't have to worry about that now. Now I just have to worry about my overpowering impulse to be as ugly as possible about what I have personally subjected myself to.

(The completely deceptive poster for our not at all witchy or eerie opening feature.)

In need of a passable time-waster this afternoon, I put on 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE. Released in March of 2019, Caitlin Koller's claustrophobic black comedy feels oddly like a product of 2020. A group of estranged, middle-aged college pals of the BIG CHILL ilk--which one of the characters calls out, out loud, just so ya know--come together for a fallen comrade's funeral, only to find themselves trapped in his widow's increasingly creepy cabin in the woods. Said comrade was driven to suicide by the failure of a psychological experiment he conducted that plunged its subject into madness, and if you don't realize right away that the obnoxious and unstable cast are the new subjects of their not-quite-dead friend's renewed project, then you're firing a lot slower than 24 frames per second. The dialog is often decent, aiding a handful of funny, natural performances...but it's hard to forget that you're just waiting for the conspicuously crazy widow to reveal that the "unexplained events" in and around the cabin are part of a controlled attempt to get the guests to devolve into their worst selves, which isn't such a difficult task considering the undesirable state they all arrive in.

It just made me ask myself, what was the point of this? Why do people make movies that are entirely predicated on the shock of the twist, knowing that if the twist isn't so shocking--or is baldly obvious from the start--then the whole experience just falls apart? Why not hedge your bets with a little more depth, or purpose, or style, or really anything more reliable than a smug attempt to prove that your script is smarter than your audience? Even if you do manage to pull off this dubious accomplishment, it reduces your movie to something like the experience of having somebody jump out of a closet and scream in your ear to "get" you. I've always felt concerned that if somebody ever tries to "get" me like that, I might just automatically punch them in the face. But anyway, whatever shred of good will this movie could have accrued with its plucky performances is blown away by the final insult, when the cops arrive to clean up the inevitable bloody mess. The responding officers are hilariously unimpressed and unsurprised by the byzantine scheme that has resulted in a shocking act of violence, because the cabin's "guest book", which our heroes all filled out, was actually the signatory page of a complicated waiver form granting full permission to the hosts to, like, do whatever the hell they want to everybody. Presumably this shit just goes on all the time, leading the local law to shrug off anything that happens to or because of the dumbassed lab rats who frequent the cabin? I dunno. I mean, what can I say? ACAB, I guess!

At the time, I managed to resist the urge to take to the internet and decry the crimes of this lame-o party joke. I really don't like the sensation that a movie is just trying to trick me into thinking something that isn't true. But, this isn't, like, an affront to cinema. People make annoying, below average movies all the time, and maybe you kinda have to, if you eventually want to make better movies. I imagine myself in the shoes of the people who actually put some elbow grease into this production, having to wade through the rantings of internet ghouls like myself while they're trying to see how their efforts are paying off. Making a movie is probably a lot harder than I think it is.

But that's part of the point I'm heading toward. I'm always amazed by people's willingness to pour huge amounts of energy and capital into something to which there is ultimately very little point. I mean, I have bad, unoriginal, boring ideas every single day of my life. But I almost never DO any of them. I have a hard enough time convincing myself to just get out of bed in the morning, let alone devote blood, sweat, and money to deliver unto the world material evidence of my personal mediocrity. I can't imagine thinking it would be worth it, for myself or the unfortunate people who are subjected to my project, to actually execute on my bad ideas. I'm being judgmental, but honestly, I don't even know if my attitude makes me better or worse than someone who accomplishes the task of completing and selling a movie that's mainly a waste of time. Movies are so complicated, and realizing them requires the consensus of so many people, that it's sort of incredible that there are people capable of making one that doesn't have a powerfully compelling motivation behind it. People who are able to do such a thing obviously have something that I don't, and it isn't just "consideration for the audience."

So, I could probably stand to be more forgiving--or just, less eager to absolutely flay someone alive on my dumb little blog because they so opened themselves up to my arsenal of elaborate insults. But like...not all the time. Sometimes, a movie really fucking asks for it, and in revealing itself to me, it has effectively signed a waiver giving me patent freedom to do whatever I want to it. CONFESSIONAL is the latest movie to give me such a gift. After the final credit rolled in 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE, I looked for a little palate cleanser. As little as I like movies that put their single egg in the motheaten basket of a "shocking twist", I also have a problem with what I identify as canned theater. Not that I think all movies have to be lavish productions, but I think they should try to do something that is natively cinematic. It's very rare that I'm impressed by anything that is literally all talk. So, I went in search of some more familiar form of trash to help me recallibrate, and trash is definitely what I got.

(Me crying over my own bad decisions.)

To be fair, I kind of should have known that I was in for a challenging experience. The 2019 found footage thriller CONFESSIONAL is more or less based on the "confessional" part of sleazy reality TV shows, isolating each cast member in a soundproof stall so they can spill the rotten contents of their guts. Unfortunately, I spotted a review suggesting that the movie succeeded, against all odds, at remaining visually dynamic despite the unchanging scenery, and I was intrigued. The reviewer was correct, impressively; the monotony of the coffin-like environment with its dark foam walls was the least of my concerns. Other problems superseded that threat, immediately. The plot concerns a group of college pals who come together to remember a recently deceased friend--a filmmaker who expired mysteriously while completing a psychology-tinged project in which she recorded all of her friends' most shameful personal secrets. Now, somebody else has taken over the project...someone who "has never been identified", according to an early title card in this movie-within-a-movie (EVEN THOUGH THIS PERSON WILL BE EXPLICITLY IDENTIFIED AT THE END OF THE MOVIE SO LIKE WHY), but who seems likely to be the decedent's ex-lover...who continues to expose their subjects' most shameful secrets on film. I mean, what the fuck? Did I somehow manage to pick a second movie with almost the exact same plot??? I couldn't believe it. I didn't know if I could take it. My prospects only got worse when the cast showed up and started talking. I tried to turn the movie off. I backed out and walked away from it, twice. But I couldn't leave it alone. I had to know if it was really the same movie.

CONFESSIONAL concerns characters who are contemporaneously in college, which actually goes a long way to making everything worse. Each of these walking cliches is connected in some way to Amelia, a film student whose mysterious death has created a campus scandal, leaving shattered hearts and lives in its wake. The living have each received a blackmail-flavored invitation to speak about the deceased in a tiny "confessional booth" somewhere on campus, where, predictably, they find themselves locked in until they confess whatever they know about Amelia, and their classmates. I don't know why practically every single movie about young people has to be so miserable, but this is one of those. I assume that it has something to do with the fact that youth is simultaneously so desired and so ignored. People in their teens and early 20s are so sexually coveted, yet so easily dismissed as individuals, that we wind up with all this media that panders to them relentlessly (or at least, panders to the legions of ticket-buying perverts who enjoy watching them prance around), without almost any consideration of how they actually think and act, and look. Movies like FAT GIRL and WELCOME TO THE DOLL HOUSE may be accused of their own form of pandering, a venal form of voyeuristic schadenfreude, but at least they reflect something of the awkwardness, isolation, and incompleteness of adolescence; something more than the dissociated, pornographic fantasies of adults who have long since forgotten what it was like to be powerless and ignored, or desired by people who don't even like you.

Not that CONFESSIONAL is supposed to be a work of grim realism, but it is most definitely rooted in a fantasy about college life that makes its contrived, message-y plot a lot harder to take. With almost the sole exception of "the nerdy one", every single character looks like a Bratz doll, oozing an exaggerated indecency that belies the movie's pretentious insistence on addressing the sex & gender Issues of the Day. What you get is a really good example of what happens when millennial characters are modeled, not on any actual millennials, but on other forms of marketing that are aimed at millennials, which are themselves just based on other preexisting youth-targeted commercials, et al ad nauseam. Even setting aside the deliriously slutty wardrobe choices, makeup appears to have been laid on with a trowel, coating each actor in a thick creamy layer of spackle that only makes any scars, pits, or other evidence of individuality look utterly bizarre. Accordingly, everybody preens, pouts, and generally behaves as if they're about to take off their clothes, which might be a huge relief given the profusion of chafing, cheapo mesh and straps they're laboring under.

So, ok, not every movie can have a great costume department, but the dialog here is a perfect match for the disastrous aesthetic decisions. Actually, this is the real reason I almost walked out on CONFESSIONAL. If I may ramble briefly, without substantiating any of my broad-ranging claims: Sometime in the late 90s/early 00s, horror cinema seemed to suffer a degenerative slide away from genuine thrills and chills, and into a version of the genre that is best characterized as the Slutty Halloween Costume approach. Any sense of existential dread, revulsion, or bodily vulnerability was widely replaced by a cutesy, Hot Topic-y preference for fast fashion and sex appeal, in which bloodshed more facilitated an informal wet teeshirt contest than any real fear induction. Horror's new mall goth look came with an equally shallow, boring verbal affectation: a sullen, sleazy, tooth-sucking sarcasm, that ushered in a new era in which, instead of making fun of the scummy coked-out dialog in porno movies, we now expect everybody to just talk like that, because it's hot. There's probably a line to be drawn between this unfortunate development, and the boneheaded real-world trend of identifying "sarcasm" as an important personal selling point on dating sites, but I won't try to prove that here. For now, I will just say that as soon as I heard the CONFESSIONAL characters start to speak, with their sneering, insinuating tones, with the vocal fry, with the head wagging, the jutting jaws, the smoldering gazes, the juvenile dragging-out of horny grownup words like de-bauch-er-y...I almost lost my nerve. Listening to these little creeps hissing and spitting for 84 minutes is a lot like being hit on by some barfly who continues to bludgeon you with his hot breath and corny lines without ever noticing that you've thrown up into your pint.

Uh, anyway. So what actually happens in the movie. Why would anyone ever allow someone to record video of them revealing the ugliest, most embarrassing parts of themselves? Especially a kid, for whom popularity and reputation are often a matter of life or death--literally and specifically, in the case of this story. The flimsy reason is that the late filmmaker, Amelia, was the most awesomest girl ever. Everybody loved her, because she was so sweet, and so smart, and so cool, and so nice, and so deep, and so original, and so talented, and so sexy, and just like, the bestest most perfectest girl in the whole wide world. N.B. "The greatest of all time" is, perhaps counter-intuitively, a really bad quality that makes for really shitty, boring characters. For better or worse, Amelia is rarely on screen (and when she is, she's no Laura Palmer, frankly), so it's up to the viewer to just sort of imagine a type of person who could make you act against your best interests on account of you just like them so much. After all, so many of the characters were obsessed with her in some way, that it's like they're here to help you clap your hands and believe in this seductive, compelling part of the movie, that just isn't actually there on the screen. The anonymous antihero behind the confessional booth scheme slowly extracts from each character the selfish, destructive behavior that in some way contributed to the tragic loss of the most amazing person of all time--and part of the result is, if not a very interesting excuse for Amelia's death, then a story so wacky that I really wish they had centered the movie on it, instead of on the tawdry soap opera we're locked into. Even if that imaginary movie had been really bad, and it probably would have been, at it would at least have been entertaining.

Part of what leads up to the death of Amelia is the existence of a secret school fight club, led by a stereotypically sleazy gender studies major, named Major, who is out to prove men's inherent superiority. The club is called CFB, or Cock Fights Back, which is somehow a garbled pun relating to cock fights, and Trump's famous line of "locker room talk": "grab'em by the pussy" > "pussy grabs back" > "cock fights back". CFB is different from your ordinary fight club in that the fights are always between girls and boys, and the boys are always blindfolded, in order to prove that a fully-abled female is no match for even a handicapped male. To complicate things, a new designer amphetamine is gaining popularity on campus, called "odds-on", meaning that it makes you the odds-on favorite in your CFB fight. As awkward as that is, it also seems that men are never the guaranteed winners of these fights, which makes you wonder why Major insists on continuing to host them. As much as I would have preferred to watch a stupid movie about this stupid idea, I'm stuck instead with a movie in which Major is such an aggressive MRA because he's secretly gay, and he thinks that hating women is a great way to hide that...as if that isn't what we all openly suspect about aggro MRAs. Secret gayness is a big part of this movie, involving multiple characters, although it amounts to very little other than the perpetuation of some stale, harmful cliches about how unfulfilled homosexual urges lead to suicide, sexual abuse, and murder. CONFESSIONAL is just as reliant on this grim vision of gay life, as it is on its weirdly obtuse discussion of drug addiction, for the suffocating sense of self-importance that it uses to try to elevate itself above its porn-y trappings. None of the movie's hot button issues are given any real thought, but are only dragged through the mud to create the illusion that there's a point to all this, thus relieving the film of any sense of innocence that could have made its condescending sleaziness forgivable.

Admittedly, I can't really remember all the details of the film's tortured intrigue anymore, even though I basically just saw it. A lot of its meandering revelations just left me thinking, "Why did I need to know that? Why should I care?" I do know that about half way through this ordeal, I became really anxious about whether it would turn out that CONFESSIONAL did NOT have exactly the same plot as 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE after all, and I put myself through all this for nothing. But no, I was right to begin with. The wonderful Amelia's ethically dubious film project has been picked up by the unhinged lesbian character who loved her so much she wanted to become her, and killing Amelia and usurping her confessional project was apparently the best way of doing that. I guess exposing all the dark, violent secrets of all these tangentially involved characters was just an added bonus, or whatever. Ultimately, this ugly, ignorant PSA about something-or-other only deals itself further damage by relying so heavily on the potential of its clumsy twist to blow your mind, which it does not at all.

So that was it, that's how I burned a whole afternoon allowing my mind to implode-not-explode under the ponderous force of TWO (2) movies about exactly the same exhausted cliche that is still being peddled by certain pretentious assholes as fresh and exciting, and beyond the capacity of the audience to anticipate. There's probably a whole slew of other movies that employ this overly familiar "surprise", but I don't have it in me to dig them out of my long-suffering brain. Feel free to contribute in the comments. For now, I must prepare myself for the ordeal of Blogtober, during which I will *hopefully* choose my screening selections and words more thoughtfully than I have in previous years, when this blog was motivated by just as much abject misanthropy as these movies, which do nothing but willfully insult the audience's intelligence. Maybe today's detour into degradation will help me go forth toward more additive experiences, having purged several lungfuls of meaningless venom from my system, and this season will bring with it more interesting, provocative posts than the last. Or maybe not! In any case, I promise to keep trying my hardest to make it funny.

PS I actually love both FAT GIRL and WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE. I’m “just saying”.

#blogtober #2020 #confessional #2019 #30 miles from nowhere #horror #thriller #black comedy #found footage #brad t gottfred #jennifer wolfe #jennifer bosworth #caitlin koller

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frostsinth · 4 years ago

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1, 7 and 14? C:

I FORGOT I POSTED THIS! (and was confused why I got numbers in my ask box xD). But thank you so much for asking! -draws in a deep breath-

1. Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

Where do I start?? Royal Flush is my big thing right now. You guys should know all about my #obsession. It’s literally the only OC on my blog right now. I’m on the last chapter; I’ve written pretty much all of it, I’m just going back through and adding final details, editing out overused words. Making sure everything flows. The thing I love most about Royal Flush is that... it was literally just a whim. I think I was listening to ‘Dance, Magic, Dance’ and came up with the entire plot/story in my head. Grier is absolutely inspired/influenced by David Bowie in ‘the Labyrinth’. Nikostratus has become a personification of myself, mostly my anxiety. I love everything about these boys, and love how wonderfully their characters have just absolutely solidified into a reality. I wish I could write about them forever.

I’m also working on several other projects for tumblr, which should be familiar. Lost Time has taken a side burner, as I got kind of stuck in my inspiration. A Line in the Sand I have lots of plans for, but my attention is sucked dry by Royal Flush until I finish it (which will be soon!), then it’ll be my next priority. And I haven’t forgotten about Deals with Demons! I have more thoughts and plans for the next installment of that as well.

My big project, that I’ve kind of abandoned since I side tracked with Li’un Ma Shkio was my own full length novel that I was writing. I haven’t come up with a name for it yet, but the story opens when a pair of adventurers come to an ancient castle beyond the reach of civilization to look for a ‘cure’ for their cursed friend. Because, legend has it, the curse was started by a demon who once lived there. However when they arrive, they find instead a mysterious young woman. A human woman, for all they can tell. And when they find out the demon never actually left the castle and the woman lives there with him, they believe she’s being held there against her will. That is, until an assassination attempt on the demon sends her on a quest of her own to find the would-be assassin. So the question is, will they join her to save a demon of all things? And why is she just so absolutely strange?? (Sorry, I’m so bad at summaries. As I mention below)

That story was the start of all this. I created the world that all my stories happen in using the lore from that one. I’d love to finish it and publish some day... I got about 100 pages in, and I have it all planned out. Just need to sit and write it... Honestly, I have probably a dozen WIPs, I could talk about them all day. I’d love to show everyone how they are all tied together! (BECAUSE THEY ABSOLUTELY ARE)

7.What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

I think I write very descriptively and poetically? Perhaps like an old romance poet... I tend to babble on. Like who was that... Hawthorne? I have a lot of long sentences, a lot huge descriptive paragraphs. I tend to fall into the same types of scenes and tropes, but I mostly write for my own amusement, so it doesn’t bother me much.

I would also like to think I write soft moments very well. I definitely love me a confessional. I love the slow burns, and cuddles, and foreplay/aftercare. I tend to go off on tangents. I just have sooo much that needs to be all said at once!! I hope people agree, though honestly, I would love to hear from my readers what’s so distinctive about my writing style.

14. At what point in writing do you come up with a title?

I hate titles. I have the hardest time coming up with titles. Usually it’s one of the last things I figure out about a piece. But once I do come up with a title, it’s mine. And I love it. Now blurbs/descriptions of my works?? I just wrote 300 pages of a romance between a goblin king and a human prince. How tf am I supposed to summarize that in a single paragraph???

I tend to go on and on. But I love to talk about this stuff! So thank you thank you thank you!! Want to know more?? Here’s the list of asks! My inbox is always open.

#vixencatastrophe #frostsinth answers #frostsinth irl #Royal Flush #A Line in the Sand #Deals with Demons

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royal-loki · 6 years ago

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Thorki Playlist

Sometimes you just want to hang out on your own blog and listen to tunes that remind you of your OTP. I made a playlist that you all can listen to on my tumblr as you scroll through posts. I also wrote a narrative to describe the events in the movies as they fit with the songs I chose. Hope you all enjoy my Thorki mixtape! (Sometimes ads play before the music starts but they are in the order listed below; to skip the ads just go back and forth between the songs)

Thor (2011)

Bad Blood - Taylor Swift

Loki feels extreme jealousy and resentment during Thor’s coronation and plots to interrupt his brother’s big day. All those years of living in his golden brother’s shadow has created some bad blood between them, at least in Loki’s mind.

Somebody That I Used To Know - Gotye

Thor is stunned by Loki’s treacherous actions towards him and their father. After Sif and the Warriors Three arrived on Midgard and told Thor of Loki’s plans, he was heartbroken. He can’t comprehend why Loki would betray him. They were raised together, played together, fought together, and now Loki is just somebody that he used to know.

Wrecking Ball - Miley Cyrus

During Thor and Loki’s showdown on the Bifrost Bridge, Loki expresses his rage in the battle against his brother. He never meant to start a war, he only wanted Thor to let him in. But Loki can’t live a lie, and like a wrecking ball he breaks the memories of his old life that their deceitful father had created and lets himself fall into the abyss.

It’s My Life - No Doubt

Loki had survived his fall but now finds himself amongst the bitter outcasts of the Nine Realms. Hurt by those closest to him and finding an ally in Thanos, he constructs a plan to get revenge on his brother. “It’s my life,” sneers Loki, “I am no longer bound to the throne of Asgard thus I shall create a new kingdom on Midgard.”

The Avengers

Break The Ice - Britney Spears

It’s been a year since Thor last saw Loki, believing that he had perished in the abyss. In his fury, he pulled Loki out the mortal’s aircraft and brought them down to the cold ground below. Now seeing him under the moonlight, after all this time, has been like staring at a ghost. He’s alive, thinks Thor, thank the Norns. “I thought you dead,” Thor utters to Loki, attempting to break the ice. He doesn’t want to scare away his brother. He just wants him to come home. He wants to hold him close and never let him go ever again.

Circus - Britney Spears

Loki wrought down a nightmarish invasion of Chitauri soldiers and giant leviathans that are wreaking havoc on New York City. Watching the Avengers scramble around to stop the Armageddon has been amusing. Loki feels the adrenaline moving through his veins, he has never felt more alive. Thor surely will see him as an equal now. As Loki stands atop of Stark Tower, he thinks, “All the eyes on me in the center of the ring, just like a circus.”

Sorry - Justin Bieber

The battle is over, Loki has lost. Thor leads his brother to where they will depart from Midgard and return to Asgard where Loki will face judgement from the Allfather. The Avengers surround the two Gods as they grip the Tesseract on opposite sides. Loki’s mouth is covered with a guard to prevent him from bewitching anyone. His silver tongue can’t get him out of this situation. He knows that he may have severed the last bit of trust Thor had for him. “I know that I let you down,” Loki ruminates while looking up at his brother, “Is it too late to say I'm sorry now?”

Thor: The Dark World

The Kill - 30 Seconds To Mars

Loki stands before the Allfather in chains. He is still proud despite the dire situation he finds himself in. Coolly, he addresses his father yet Odin doesn’t seem to understand the pain he has caused his adopted son by lying to him. Just as Loki finds himself on the losing side of the argument, Odin goes in for the kill, “Your birthright was to die!” Come, break me down, Loki thinks, bury me, I am finished with you. He is led away to the dungeons, spared from death but crestfallen.

Numb - Linkin Park

Loki passes time in prison without a single visit from his brother. Weeks pass as he begins to shut down emotionally. Frigga is his only visitor and the only one that begged Odin to spare Loki’s life. The Queen tenderly attempts to comfort her youngest son, trying to reason with Loki to spare the fragile relations that struggle to keep hold the bonds between the Asgardian royal family. Loki reaches out to his mother, numb yet longing for her touch. His hand passes through her skillfully crafted illusion, the same seiðr that she taught him as a child. As he watches her disappear, he dejects to himself, every step that I take is another mistake to you.

Vindicated - Dashboard Confessional

Thor recruits Loki to fight the Dark Elves. Although Thor claims he doesn’t trust Loki, his younger brother knows that if that were the case he would have never come to him for help. The fate of Asgard depends on Loki’s cooperation. Thor’s faith in him is but a faint glow in the dark void that Loki feels in his heart, yet his brother’s love makes him feel vindicated. Loki finds the morale to fight alongside his brother once more, and to avenge his fallen mother.

How To Save A Life - The Fray

Loki lay in Thor’s arms. “I didn’t do it for him.” His younger brother whispers as sinks deeper into Thor’s grip. If only Thor had studied the healing arts like Loki did then maybe he would know how to save a life. Sitting there, helplessly, he cries out over his brother’s motionless body. He knows he has to keep going, to pull himself together to save the Nine Realms but at that moment he wonders what is there worth saving now?

Look What You Made Me Do - Taylor Swift

As Thor walks away, Loki lets the seiðr illusion of the Allfather slip. What other choice did he have? Go back to the dungeons for thousands of years until he wilts away or take his birthright and relieve the Mad King of his duties? Look what you made me do, thought Loki. A smile begins to creep up on his face.

Thor: Ragnarok

Feeling This - Blink 182

Thor comes back to Asgard after defeating Surtur and finds Loki on the throne instead of their father. Upon finding out that Loki is alive, he feels no anger. It has been years and all he wants to do his grab his brother and take him to his chambers. Thor begins feeling this strange mix of animalistic desire and heavenly relief. Yes, they will go look for their father where Loki had said he left him on Midgard but for now...

E.T. - Katy Perry

Loki looks on in horror as his brother rolls up in the Grandmaster’s harness chair. Happy that his older brother survived Hela’s assault but terrified of his reaction to Loki’s part in all that has taken place in the past few weeks (or days in Thor’s case). Loki suddenly feels like an E.T. in a room full of strange aliens. Without hesitation, Thor senses Loki’s presence and calls him over. Later, in their shared chambers, Loki tries to calm Thor from erupting in rage and sorrow yet he can’t stop the storm brewing inside his brother. Sparks of electricity surround Thor as he grabs hold of Loki. In this unfamiliar place, Thor only can think of one way to take his mind off of the despair that is clawing at him over the death of their father, being lied to his whole life and the fate of Asgard. He places a firm hand on Loki’s neck as he has done countless times before and kisses him.

Take Me On The Floor - The Veronicas

The elevator ride turned sour very quickly. Loki had expected his brother to beg him to stay yet he was indifferent. As Loki attempted one last trick on his brother, Thor caught him off guard and turned on the obedience disk. The God of Mischief falls to the ground. Impressed by Thor’s cunning and equally turned on, Loki looks up at him and quips, “Take me on floor.” Thor smiles sheepishly, and turns off the disk. He wants Loki to enjoy every minute of their last encounter.

Stellar - Incubus

“I’m here.” Loki says catching the glass top. Thor suddenly feels a rush of warmth flow through his whole body. In this stellar spaceship floating through the heavens, he starts to move towards his brother. They’ve lost nearly everything, their home, their parents, and most of their people. Thor embraces Loki in his giant arms in a tight hold. He can’t let him go, not again.

Avengers: Infinity War

The Ghost Of You - My Chemical Romance

Thor struggles to get to his brother’s body. His own body barely moving from the torture that Thanos inflicted on him. Only Thor’s anguish animates him. Hunching over Loki’s body, he lets out a hopeless cry, “I shall be with the ghost of you soon, brother!” Thor holds Loki close to him and resigns himself to die with the only family he has left.

All That I’ve Got - The Used

Thor wakes up among the Guardians of the Galaxy, a rag-tag group of heroes that are also seeking to get their revenge on Thanos. Thor tries to hide his sorrow by making light of the situation but he can’t stop thinking about Loki and everyone that he has lost. “All that I’ve got is the satisfaction from the vengeance I will inflict upon Thanos,” Thor whispers to himself. He scavenges the food supplies aboard the Guardian’s ship as the rabbit prepares their shuttle for their long journey to Nidavellir. All I want inside, I still am empty, Thor thinks to himself, so deep that it didn’t even bleed and catch me...

Titanium - David Guetta

Thor holds his new battle axe in his hands. The newly formed power of Stormbreaker is almost too much to bare. Mortals may only know of strong metals like titanium but a God knows otherwise. His weapon, forged in the heart of a dying star, will be his tool to avenge Loki. “Nothing to lose,” Thor mutters to himself as he sets off to Earth using the Bifrost.

#Thor Odinson #loki odinson #thor #loki #thorki #perfect #playlist

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fi-ona1-blog · 6 years ago

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Lagged a little

It is almost like coming to a confessional, writing a post about my past few weeks - “it has been 2 weeks since I last made a posting, I have much to talk about”...

Well, we wrapped up our induction, I think I remember writing a post about that. We have given presentations about what we intend to experiment and play with for the coming weeks. I will be working with the ‘immaterial’ myself - the scenographic tools that we do not hold in our hands i.e.: light, sound, atmosphere... Smoke, texture in emotion, balance...

I am starting to collect sounds and create sounds. I am researching the right softwares for me to then import my sounds and play with their pitch, tone, volume etc to make sound collage... Eventuating in a spectator experience in a room.

I am documenting everything in photo, and I will make field-logs, so that I can create dialogue between the sounds and their origins, and then go further into the relationship, to abstract, distort and/or clarify > all to experiment and understand atmosphere.

I am also deciding HOW to share all of this work - here? I think that might work out, but I need something that I can upload the right kinds of media, and I am not sure that Tumblr can do that for me. So I actually have created an Are.na profile (a lot of artists with great insight are featured there) and I have another blog but it is totally bare-bones at the moment: it’s on Blogger .com, and I am very new to it so I will see how it grows :) https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5983473479078902925&pli=1#allposts

Maybe I’l use that space to depict my work, and this to log my thoughts. I am concerned about fragmenting my processes though, so I am looking for the most seamless ways... Trial and error ensue.

Anything else... Eating well, resting properly, trying to get 4 45min workouts a week but I have to really get my discipline going. I want to get a really solid 6 months of work in, I have made a Task Manager that I am recording my weekly doings, and I will tally up my hours every month. I have some goals and tasks to keep on top of, hopefully there will be evidence of the results.

Sláinte!

F xx

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survivor-mesopotamia · 4 years ago

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Ep. #3 - "I'm just throwing stuff at things that I don't even know exists" (Isabelle)

I'm pretty nervous for this immunity challenge. Given that its a flash game roulette, I fully expect the other returnee tribe to get the highest score, so we have to strategize our point values for each game. I decided to play winterbells since no one else wanted to, but we need to put the lowest value there because I know there's no chance I will win it with people like Monty and Johnny who could end up playing it. If we strategize the points right, we could stay safe as well. I really don't want to vote anyone from our tribe off.

youtube

praying jj is the cheater

youtube

i was gonna make a real confessional, but ill save it for tomorrow. i'd just like to say i literally look like a CRAZY person scoring 2 billion in winterbells and not thinking it was enough when the other scores were 300k and 2 million. i gtg

YES We've won our third immunity challenge and it feels pretty good. I will say that right now I do feel kinda stagnant because you know we have yet to go to tribal council but yet at the same time I don't want to go. Honestly I've been loving the tribe Michael is truely the only one I question like their whole demanor becuase they felt almost like they where constantly trying to hand off their part of the challenge to literally anyone else but also with Collin mostly because he seems to be coming off kinda................forced is probably the best word for it. Well I don't know till next time ttyl

youtube

C7: https://youtu.be/fCmPRxLuFv8 C8: https://youtu.be/HH8tYuHGDFg

Going into tribal tonight SUCKS. I don't want any of us 6 going, but it has to be done. So far the discussion seems to be all about voting Chrissa out. My personal opinion on it is indifferent. Our conversations were pretty short and I was usually the one to initiate it. I feel more bonded with the other players on my tribe. I discussed it with Julian and it looks like that's the plan in execution at the moment. We have an alliance with JJ and I'm not sure if JJ knows yet because he hasn't said anything yet. As for Will, who I consider a really close ally, he had the same thoughts. Basically there's a lot of as long as it isn't me mindsets because it's a really difficult vote. Megan approached me about making a chat with us three together which is pretty interesting. It looks as though I'm in two chats now. One with JJ and Julian and another with Megan and Will. I'd like to think that's a good sign but the only good sign in a game is when the person who everyone said was going home goes home, so fingers crossed.

https://soundcloud.com/collin-vodicka-771937060/enlil-tribe-sucks

So once again, the Enki tribe has slayed the immunity challenges, however, I am one of the weaker people when playing comps. I am predicting a tribe swap next round though, but I'm also prepping for the possibility we have to go to tribal. I have made a really strong bond with Zach, and I am extremely close with Grace. I have started to get to know Adam, and I think Collin likes the "Team Grocery Store" thing we have going on since we are both baggers at grocery stores. I'm not that close with Michael or Cameron, so I wouldn't mind if one of them left if we had to vote someone out. But as of now, I am continuing to serve as a mentor to these new players and trying to give the full truth to them so that I have good relationships with them going forward. Also, last night I discovered a youtube link in the Idol System page of the Tumblr blog. It showed dancing crabs and the URL says "Step One." I did notice however that there were 140 views already when i found it the first time. So I assume someone already knows about the video on my tribe and has figured it out already. But it still does not hurt to try to get an idol. It at least gives me closure and gives me something to do while I let these newbies overplay the game like Zach is. Concerning the future of this game, if there is a tribe swap, I need to figure out how to get in good with these returnees. The newbie players are in a minority, however I am familiar with Megan Julian and JJ. I don't know anyone on the An tribe, but I guess thats the fun in getting to know people. I just have to be as nice as possible and try not to come off as a douche to them because they have played this game before. I haven't. The last thing I want is for people to think I am an entitled asshole. I want to stay civil and let people want to work with me instead of me forcing myself onto them. Finally I have a legit confessional LMFAO

https://youtu.be/ejn4YyJogo0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POLT6aOiJZs&feature=youtu.be

We won immunity! I was worried for a moment my score wouldn't be good enough cause I hurt my hand a couple days ago so I had to take lots of breaks to ice it. And i mean it was close...between first and second. Like damnnnn they got 0 points. That really has to be a hit to their tribe morale. But speaking of tribe morale, I really feel connected to my tribe. I've had a good time just talking to everyone. I think the person I've talked to the least is Abby but even then I really like her. I think there's a really good chance we swap after tonight's tribal, even though Johnny thinks it'll happen at 16. If we do swap, the person I want most on my tribe is Benji. Obviously since he's been gone from the community for ages, there's nothing linking us together so obviously like playing Malaysia with Isabelle, hosting Johnny in Flops, and hosting Lazio with Monty, not to mention the amount of seasons he hosted me in Pacific Islands (RIP). He's also very personable so I think he could gain us new allies. P.S. Prayer circle for Chrissa and Eric tonight, if I can swap with either one of them that would be a MIRACLE

me in my mesopotamia application: i dont want to end up in a ride-or-die pair. i always get fucked over and do worse than the person im aligned close with. benji: also if i didnt make it clear already you're my #1 in this game and the only way id write your name down is to win like im not going on call with the other tribemates and comparing notes i feel like im a lot more reserved around the others this was the first alliance i made and im sticking to it! me: you're my #1 too! no way i could write your name down either just in case that was not clear oifjeoijrf history repeats itself, baby! honestly its too early to tell if ill meet the same fate as i have in the past with my close 2s/3s (shoutout ash, sara, nick w + christine), but here we are. god as i sent that message i knew immediately it's gonna bite me in the butt later on. like i wasn't lying, i do really trust benji more than anyone else in this game BUT I NEED TO PLAY FOR ME this time! woof.

so i don't wanna talk to my host chat because drew is gonna not be proud of me and that's not okay I knew it from last night and today no one talking to me it's gonna be me no one ever wants me at merge so it's fine I could fight for it but JJ has given up so i guess that's it.

Things are... still good! We continue to do well enough in challenges that all strategic talk has been pretty much confined to agreeing to stay united and get everyone in the tribe as far as we can. It’s been surprisingly relaxed so far.

RIP Chrissa she didn't deserve this

from chrissa's boot ep https://youtu.be/02a8QiaQG8M

Chrissa voted out 5-1

#nomorethings

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survivor-kalymnos · 5 years ago

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Ep. 1 - “I am THE Survivor Chick And I Am Here To Win It All!!” - Susan

Franco

hehe

Maxyne

I AM FREAKING THE FUCK OUT!!!!! I don't know why I am, it's just another Survivor game but... I have be someone else kind of. So for this game I have to be "Maxyne" and I'm keeping my pronoun flexibility but I'm gonna be pushing the feminine side a bit more. Maxyne is actually my irl sister's middle name so it'll be easy for me to quickly become familiar with that name being used for me. I also know that Tim is gonna be in this game but idk who and I sure as hell don't wanna find out. Tim actually told me to apply cause they said that they were applying to but my dumbass did NOT know this was an alias game so now I'm fumbling around in the dark trying get into costume n shit not knowing what to do or what to expect. The only thing I have to cling onto my knowledge of Survivor ORGs and Jay's style of hosting. Which honestly don't do me well cause I haven't played Survivor in... months and I haven't been tuned into a Jay game in months too so I have no idea the ride I'm in for. One thing I did do is scroll through the rules, cause my experience always tells me that whenever there's a tumblr blog for an ORG, there's always something hidden somewhere there. Lo and behold, I was right so come 9 PM tonight I will be camping on the rules page updating and waiting for a clue, or someway to start my search. Cause every Survivor game i've played, the idol is found in less then 5 minutes and by the way I've formulated a thought about the idol, it's already long gone. So hopefully, I can pull a Merida and change my fate. Also there was a mention of One World rounds happening in this game??? UMMMM WTF??? PLEASE LET THAT BE A ONE TIME THING. Anyways, sorry for the word vomit, I usually have a lot of pre game jitters and thoughts so I figured I'd get a jump on my confessional count and start talking now. Let's hope I can pull through for this game and make it far. Or vote me out first, i'd rather not have responsibilities right now.

Rain

I’m looking forward to this. I’m looking forward to people not remembering who I am. I’ve been out of this a year now, I’m well and ready to get first boot, but I’m curious to see how a better, matured me will play. Probably badly, let’s be fuckin real. Anyway I’ll check back in toward the middle of this round. We’ll see how all my sockpuppet counterparts compare against my impossible standards.

Maxyne

5 minutes before the game starts and mama we. Are. SCARED.

Elle

This time around I am going to go for a peppy, happy-go-lucky girl. Not all of my tribe mates are online atm which majorly sucks! Plus, not everyone has me added. I am going to wait till people add me before I add them. I'll give it the night into the morning for that to happen. Otherwise, I'll slowly add them one-by-one. I want to do the slide puzzles because I know I am good at them. I'm going for a more hands-off approach when it comes to socializing so I need all the time I can get to set myself up in the tribe. If we can win the challenge then it'll be a great opportunity to really bond with my tribe mates.

Maxyne, Fae, and Erick seem to be the most active atm with Fae being the most social. I'll observe how far that socializing and activity goes on. It can either work to my benefit or I need to get rid of the ASAP.

Frank

Wanna start by saying that having a round button in this form is the smartest thing I’ve ever seen. Now onto my confessional: this tribe is alright, some people haven’t spoken yet I think and people seem nice and cooperative thus far. I’m so nosy so not knowing who everyone is is going to be a struggle for me. But I’m guessing Maynor is Gregg on the other tribe bc of the Sophie icon, but watch me be wrong. I’ll try to keep confessionals interesting, but then again I lie sometimes so womp.

Worm

So I am an hour into my first alias game and I’m already stressing the fuck out. I am so used to being able to go on call with people and get to know them. I wanna say one of my greatest strength is getting solid reads on people when I talk to them but that is only when I can go on call with them. This whole thing is gonna be a struggle

Fae

well we are an hour into this game and I have already fucked up my story. Guess I'm moving home now because I didn't think anything through. dear god. Why am I like this? guess moving my grandmother is going to turn into Me moving home lol. welp, lets see how this goes.

Maxyne

*googles How to stop oversharing*

Michele

Franco is a king we stan. Also I’m still laughing at worms name

Rain

Michele: Chosen one, will betray at f5

Susan: OTTN5

Worm: oh, worm?

Gregg: Dylan in disguise, watch me betray him again

Uhhh I’ll be back with the rest eventually first night is horrid

Idol hunt: OTTNNNNNNN10

Dusty

So far im feeling good on my tribe! I'm getting along really well with Erick! We have a lot in common and match each others energy. I'm also talking well with Fae, who says they think we've played a game together!! So I'm trying to figure out who it might be! I'm a little worried about the people who haven't spoken yet, but hopefully I'll be able to get to know them!

Elle

I think I'm connecting well with Maxyne. Since we are both doing the same assignment, it allows for me to grow closer with them. I think I might make them my ride-or-die, but I want to see how well our connection lasts in the days to come. Van and I are making great conversation in the tribe chat. I hope they will want to work with me. Other than that, I have not chatted with anyone else on the tribe. The people who have contacted me I talk to sporadically. I hope this is enough to get me by as I do not want to be seen as a social threat later down the line. Also, like, why did so many people get a disadvantage? I am so disappointed in all of them, but I know we can pull through!

lenny

off to an interesting start! so far, I am enjoying my tribe. definitely more chill than my last one but only time will tell. people's true motives will come out soon and this time, I am trying to really pay attention to who is a leader and who is a follower.

Franco

Nera tribe has such good positive energies? There hasn't been any friction, everyone is joking with each other, and overall everyone is having a great time!! Very honestly though I'm not sure what to make of everyone in a game and strategic sense. I've tried talking game with the majority of the tribe but most of it was still just like small talk and vague sentences. Im tryna play this fast and hard but I don't think anyone else is ): I vibe really well with Michele, Eliza, and Rain. Michele and Rain are so fun and probably down to get messy, so they'd be great allies. And eliza just seems like a genuinely good person that I think I would get along with really nicely!! I also REALLY want this reward challenge. Ive gotten three people at least who said that they would vote for me so!! Let's hope I win, at the very least itd be nice to prove to myself that I can have a good social game early on

Franco

On my very FIRST idol hunt of the SEASON I find?? A legacy advantage??? Im so??? Shook and excited. I just have a feeling that this is my game! Night 1 kinda sets the tone of the whole game and I had an AMAZING night 1. I also uhhh am dumb and told Michele that i found it. My goal was to gain her trust so we could work together but? She kinda just didn't respond and changed the topic. Idk if that's a good sign so yikes!!

Elle

Honestly, I should resign myself to the fate that we will not win the next challenge. So, it is imperative that we win this challenge so that we do not go to tribal two times in a row. I hope my score of 85 is enough because I could not get it any higher than that. I am honestly very frustrated with my tribe at the moment, but I guess we shall see how things develop. Maxyne and Erick getting the advantage is interesting only because it shows who has been the most social. I will either need to get in good with the both of them or take them out early. However, the most active and social people usually do not go home first. For now, I will just keep my eye on the two of them and see how they position themselves.

Elle

Erick giving the tribe the clue was definitely a strategic move. He wants to build trust and be transparent with everyone in order for them to like him. I see right through it. However, it is nice to get an edge on the hunt.

Fae

I FOUND THE IDOL!!!! Erick decided to share the clue and I FOUND IT!!!!

Eliza

dear m’fucking diary...

Hey gays, this is a crack fest. I’m doing this confession rn so that I don’t have to do that fever dream of a puzzle. I got a bat to the face when I did the idol hunt, funnnnn. So, let’s recap! I’ve been connecting with a lot of people so far and that’s great, I love my tribe rn and I’m happy that Franco won the reward considering that I voted for them, so now I can at least get on Franco’s good side an maybe get some info👀. Because this is alias I probably will be playing a tad bit differently but I’m still going to be the social playing badass that y’all know and love! The worst part of this so far is that I can’t fucking say y’all, who the hell says y o u g u y s. I’m changing how I speak just a bit so that I don’t immediately get clocked, so basically I can’t use y’all and lmao in every sentence. The people I feel closest to right now are Franco, Michelle, tristin, rain, and worm. In that order, don’t get me wrong, I love everyone in the tribe, those are just the people I’ve been able to connect with the most. I’d love to move forward with that group but if that doesn’t happen well then whatever, I mean I talk to literally everyone so I’ll survive. Pretending to be interested romantically in men (sorry James Zachary) is horrible, but I think people are at least believing that I’m 20. Jay told me that all I have to do to be an adult is be excited about stupid boring shit, so I’m just gonna pretend that I’m happy about buying a new couch. Well I’ll check back in soon to update y’all about people and probably give an analysis about everyone. That’s it, much loveeeee

Fae

I just want to say how ironic it is that I decided to do the idol hunt in the challenge and in reality actually found an idol

Gregg

Well. Im already overwhelmed and literally wanted out. (Jay knows why) But im doing counting challenge and i hope another f4 counting challenge doesnt affect my perfermance for this one. I really want to help the tribe win. Honestly im not gunna bother trying to figure out who is who. Im just gunna play and think the people are the people and play normally. Trying to guess ppl is what gunna mess me up. So wont bother with it but some phrase some ppl have said. I feel like i know who they r.

Franco

I WON FIRST REWARD AHHH. I'm such a social legend? Look at me? I'm literally winning this game. I kinda don't care about the clue because I already have a legacy advantage, AND half of a super idol (that I gotta give to somebody else, booooo), so I'm kinda??? Being chaotic and giving the clue to everyone who voted for me. It can give me an opportunity to gain more trust on the tribe

Tristin

https://youtu.be/Wyi5uWAulnE

Maxyne

I know this is late and it's long but i fell asleep last night while this was uploading, so sorry https://youtu.be/mXmbL49orVI

Elle

Now that I have gotten to talk to everyone I can finally assess my tribe. I feel like I can be great allies with Maxyne. They voted for me in the reward which means we have a mutual good vibe from each other. Hopefully I can make them my ride-or-die. Fae and Van are really nice and I can get down with them. I think if I could choose a strong alliance of three I would pick them while having Maxyne as my real ride-or-die. Sasha seems to be the least social with me which means that they could be an easy target. I don't trust Erick or Cran because they just give me bad vibes. I do not think anything of Frank. They are probably with Sasha as one of the least social in the tribe. At least Sasha is being active within the tribe chat. Finally, I think Dusty is a sweetheart and could possibly be another one of my allies. At the very least, I know I was strong in the challenge and have at least been moderately social. This means I will not be the first boot if we were to go to tribal.

Dusty

So now we've got an alliance in the works between me, Fae, Erick, and Elle. All in the name of working together to find the idol. I feel good about the group! Me and Erick are both each others closest ally. He won the reward challenge and in doing so he was able to will be half of a super idol! We don't know where the other half might be, but I'm really happy to see that Erick trusted me enough to will me a super idol!

van

So uh...I haven’t been super active because the world is burning around us. But I’m trying. So far I really enjoy the people I’m playing with!

Elle

Dusty asking me to work with Fae and Erick on finding the idol which works out well for me. This means I have already positioned myself into a sort of alliance which I hope will carry me in the future.

Elle

Fae confirmed with me the alliance that Dusty approached me with. However, there was no chat made. Also, Cranjes was added to the alliance by Erick and Fae which tells me that those those two are very social with him. These people are making their connections to obvious. Either way, with those people I have a 5-person majority. Hopefully these people will carry me through the pre-swap phase of the game, but I am getting pretty nervous in my seat. I do not trust Erick and Cranjes. I like Dusty and Fae, but I cannot get a read on the other two. Plus, if no chat has been made, how are we going to solidify the alliance? Hopefully my performance in the challenge will cover me for now, but I am getting pretty nervous at the moment.

Michele

elfranchele just started! it's an alliance chat with michele, franco, and eliza. excited to see where this goes!!

I can't tell if Susan is just super into her alias or if she really is old with her hubs

Cranjes

everyone seems nice. i guess. idk. i fell off a waterfall and fucked up my ankle for a fucking idol. but if anyone asks, it was sasha.

i have something against the name sasha bc peppermint should’ve won season 9 of drag race, not sasha velour

Fae

Soooo, there is now a chat for people to hell each other look for the idol. The idol I have...

Frank

YESSSSSSS!!! I’m not gonna be first boot. It’s a party even though I didn’t win my section. Eliza didn’t do their part on the other tribe and that’s a yikes (at least with a 2 hour time exactly that’s what I’m assuming). So like they’re probably going. I’m really happy I don’t have to worry about tribal tomorrow because my sister wants to drink and celebrate her birthday since plans went sour because of that quarantine life. But gamewise though, I want to talk to Erick tomorrow since they seem like someone I could work with, although based on reward I think multiple people think that. Gonna remember that. Gotta be social....but I’m me so it’ll be an uphill battle.

Rain

So, we lost immunity.

I could have seen that coming - but at least we weren’t totally destroyed. I’m already thinking Susan as a name but uhhh we’ll see where it goes. I’m pretty good with Franco, Michele and Eliza. I wouldn’t be shook if there was an alliance chat made at some point. I like Tristan too! And Gregg. And Lenny. ....okay I like everyone but Susan. Susan I’m sorry I respect your character choice but it ain’t it, chief.

Gregg

I feel like i might be good for this tribal. Only one name has been said which kinda worries me but im trying to stay positive. Susan is the target tonight and as long as it isnt me. Im okay with voting for whoever. Franco did share the clue with me. It was a simple clue so idk if itll be helpful or not. Im looking at a certain spot and doing all the 4 spots in the section. So hopefully i can find something.

erick

hi i have the eco fascist dream flu and i cannot move but cranjes is john and fae is birch confirmed, i fucked up the challenge but not to the extent that we lost so that’s nice. current alliance going with fae, elle, and dusty (dusty’s my fave). they elected to give me the idol clue and i got half of the super idol so i gave that to dusty as was required and then shared the clue with the group at large because i’m a communist

Worm

So we lost the first immunity challenge. It sucks but I'll get over it. The thing that worries me now is trying to get a read on everyone during the vote. Because I don't know who I'm playing with I'm struggling on getting a read on anyone. On the bright side though I think I'm doing pretty well socially. I've talked to Michele and Tristin and they seem to trust me so I'm happy about that. Also it seems like the tribe has come to a unanimous vote to getting rid of Susan. I feel bad about getting her out but she is firmly holding on to her character which I think is making it difficult for her to make connections with other people in the tribe. The only that has me worried about this whole thing is how easy this vote is going. My anxious head just wonders about how people behind the scenes could be plotting to get me out and I just don't know it. This also isn't helped by the reward challenge and Franco receiving 5 votes to get the clue. A couple votes wouldn't have made me suspicious but 5 just seems like a lot. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but all my anxiety is saying is that there is a majority alliance already formed in the first couple hours of the game and now I'm just playing from the bottom. Hopefully that isn't true but only time will tell.

Susan Burke

I Am SO SO Excited To Be Here!! I am THE Survivor Chick And I Am Here To Win It All!! Everyone So Far Has Been So Kind. I Love These Kids!! However, I Know My Age Will Make Me A Target. They Don't Believe This Ol' Hiney Can Keep Up With Them!! So, I Wanted To Make It Clear That I Am LOYAL To This Tribe And Its People!! When I Was Out Looking For The Idol, I Stumbled Upon The Other Tribe's Camp!! How AWKWARD!! I Decided To Tell Franco - He's Popular, And The First One To Really See SUSAN For SUSAN. Hopefully I Can Buy His Trust, Because He Can Keep This Nanna Safe!! It's Really Unfortunate We Lost...But It Was So Close!! We Won't Lose Again!! I Was Instantly Worried It Would Be Me, But Doing The Challenge With Tristin Bonded Us!! Together, We Decided That Gregg Would Be Our Target, And Now We Gotta Get Everyone ONBOARD!! #TeamSDB

Franco

Im very very sad we have to go to tribal. Like i genuinely enjoy everyone on the tribe!! But it's the way the game goes, every time someone leaves it gets me one place closer to winning hehe. I now have an official alliance with Michele and Eliza and??? We are going to SLAY this game. We all have our individual strengths and I think we could be a powerhouse. Unless Susan has an idol, shes going tonight. Its sad because shes so fun but im not surprised. Everyone else on the tribe seems to have some sort of personal stake or investment in the game besides her.

Elle

Having immunity means that I can safely bond with my tribemates without the game hovering over our heads. I'm really vibing with everyone in the tribe chat. However, I do not want to go into PMs unless they want to talk to me because it is such a Raffy thing to do to talk to people in PMs. I will try to be as social as possible in the tribe chat to still have those bonds, but I do not want to be seen as some sort of social butterfly.

Tristin

So we LOST the challenge and that sucks!! It appears that the majority of people want to vote out SUSAN and I hate it!! She’s super sweet and the older players always get voted out first! Maybe because she hasn’t been as social as everyone else! At least thats the explanation. I pretty much solidified working with Worm, Franco, and Eliza pretty much. Michele as well I think! But separately of course! I can’t wait for an alliance chat! Sorry to this Susan!!

Sasha

It's strange to be playing in a game where I know there's people playing that I already know but I have no idea who they are. I've talked a little bit to each but not a ton. I don't have too many guesses as to who is who, though. That's it.

0 notes

dashboarddiaries · 1 month ago

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Cher: Tumblr 2014 is not a year, it’s a state of mind.

Lauren: It’s a state of mind. Absolutely.

Cher: Absolutely. Yes.

Lauren: Yeah. I love that.

Cher: We’re already so into it and we haven’t even recorded our intro yet. We’re pre intro.

Lauren: We’re so great at this.

[intro music]

Lauren: Hello, you wee-a-boo shits. I’m Lauren Shippen, professional writer, who is so heckin’ excited to do a little time traveling today!

Cher: And I’m Cher McAnelly, very Head of Entertainment at Tumblr, much 2014 aesthetic blogger.

Lauren: MUCH 2014 aesthetic. And this is Dashboard Diaries, a podcast for you – the folks who are in this internet bunker with us. We talk about what’s going on in our favorite hell site, get into what we like to call “tumbl-lore,” do fandom deep dives, and share the times when we’ve gone feral over a new ship.

And, Cher, what has your last month on Tumblr been like?

Cher: It has been quite a month. Just last night was the Emmy’s. So, obviously that has been a moment. Or last night as of when we’re recording this. And definitely could get into that but I feel like honestly we should just dive into it in a future episode because there’s so much to talk about to do with the Emmy’s.

Lauren: Shogun sweep‼

Cher: Yes. Is that your Feels Corner?

Lauren: Absolutely.

Cher: EIGHTEEN Emmy’s.

Lauren: Incredible. Ho-ly shit.

Cher: Yes. And Hacks on my end ... (sighs)

Also, if you listen to this podcast regularly you may remember our last episode – was it the last episode where we hopped into the corbit? Or was it-

Lauren: Oh yeah, the corb.

Cher: So, during our Dashboard Confessionals segment I shared a post that I had re-blogged I think in 2014 or somewhere around there on Tumblr. And it was a photo of a corn on the cob but it said, “Corn on the orb” and it was around. I shared that in ... it’s corb! Yeah.

Lauren: Corb, it’s round now.

Cher: (laughter) And corn should be round. We’ll get into my platform on that later. I shared it in our internal Tumblr Slack, as we share our favorite posts of the week, and so I dropped in the corb throwback and one of our designers on the team immediately made a corb emoji for our internal Slack. And then I was talking to her ... I replied and said, “Is there a way that we could get corb in the solar system? It should be in corbit.” And she immediately created a ... she added corb to the solar system map. And I do have that. I’m just going to drop that in our episode notes for you to see.

Lauren: Please. Do.

Cher: And I have asked her to please re-blog it to the corb post so that the world and universe can see the corb in corbit as intended.

Lauren: I’ve got to see the corb in corbit. I need that emoji for the Atypical Artists Discord.

Oh my god. There it is! It’s the biggest planet! I need that emoji. I need you to share that emoji with me.

Cher: Oh my gosh, yes. I’ll send it to you.

Lauren: This is incredible.

Cher: Please do.

Lauren: This is incredible. It is so huge. The Corb is so huge.

Cher: It’s time for the corb. Each kernel is a country on the corb.

Lauren: That’s incredible. Oh my god. It is of course habitable.

Cher: Obviously. Corn is full of water and carbs and sugar. So, you can eat the corb to live on the corb.

Lauren: Incredible. Yeah!

Cher: It’s farm ready.

Lauren: It’s the perfect planet.

Cher: We’re ready for the corb.

Lauren: We are so ready for the corb.

Cher: Coming to theaters, fall 2025, The Corb.

Lauren: The Rise of the Corb.

Cher: So, anyway, that was my last week on Tumblr.

Lauren: Incredible.

Cher: What was your last week on Tumblr, Lauren?

Lauren: So, my last month on Tumblr ... it’s mid September now, as we’re recording this, and already fall is here. And there’s this one post about corn mazes that goes around my dash like every fall that I just really love – speaking of corn, speaking of the corb – but yeah. I’ve just been re-blogging a lot of really good fall posts because we are there. We are at that time. And that’s always just an exciting time on Tumblr for me – the beginning of skeleton season and fall season. I’m vamping because I’m trying to find this corn maze post.

Cher: I agree with you. It’s one of my favorite seasons on Tumblr. You actually reminded me. I need to hop in and re-blog my favorite post of the season which is the dancing pumpkin man.

Lauren: Oh, the best.

Cher: Iconic. Legendary. I mean, it’s not fall without the dancing pumpkin man.

Lauren: Of course not. No. He’s so vital to the ecosystem.

Cher: Truly. He and the corb. The pumpkin and the corb.

Lauren: The pumpkin and the corb. (laughs)

Cher: For a balanced internet diet. (laughs)

Lauren: That sounds like some sort of children’s book, right? “The Pumpkin and the Corb were best friends...”

Cher: Oh my gosh. Lauren. Is this our next venture? The Pumpkin and the Corb!?

Lauren: Possibly.

Cher: From the website that brought you Goncharov ...

(laughter)

Lauren: The Pumpkin and the Corb.

Cher: ... a new adventure ...

Lauren: Okay. I don’t know where this corn maze post is. I’m going to have to find it and re-blog it later but basically it was just a post about the particular unique experience of doing a corn maze. Cher, have you done a corn maze ever in your life?

Cher: I have, yes. A few.

Lauren: What’s your feeling on the corn maze?

Cher: They’re a little disconcerting. My feeling on the corn maze is I’m always down to get lost in a corn maze. They always feel a little haunted. Is my opinion.

Lauren: Yeah. No, I think that’s accurate.

Cher: What about you?

Lauren: I’ll definitely re-blog this post because I think this post sums up my feelings on the corn maze pretty well which is that it’s not fun except it is fun. And you want to do it but you also don’t necessarily have a good time. But then you’re happy that you’ve done it. It’s this weird ... And it’s a very American pastime. Right? I mean, I’m sure Canada has corn mazes, too. But I don’t know necessarily that corn mazes are a big thing globally at-large. And yeah ... this corn maze post I think perfectly captures the essence of doing a corn maze not being fun but you enjoy it anyway. So yeah, I’m a big proponent of the corn maze. (laughs)

That’s what I was up to over the last couple of week is this corn maze post and thinking about corn mazes.

Cher: You’ve been in the maze of the corn maze mentally.

Lauren: Yes. Exactly.

Cher: A mental corn maze.

Lauren: A mental corn maze. I’m always in a mental corn maze.

Cher: It always comes back to the corn. The mental corn maze on the corb. Actually, the last time I went to a corn maze ... one’s local corn maze ...

Lauren: I went to my local corn maze last year, too!

(laughter)

Cher: I went to the combination pumpkin patch / corn maze, which back to the pumpkin and the corb ... and did the corn maze and after the corn maze I got into the corn pit. Does your local pumpkin patch and corn maze have a corn pit?

Lauren: You know what? Yes, it does actually. I didn’t go in the corn pit last time. But so you went ... how was the corn pit?

Cher: The corn pit was incredible, Lauren. It was the most fun I’ve ever had at a corn maze adjacent activity. People are always sent to the maze but they yearn for the pit, Lauren.

(laughter)

Lauren: It does sound like we’re describing some sort of weird old Greek trial you have to endure in order to make it to the afterlife.

Cher: Truly. If you make it through the corn maze you get an extra hour in the corn pit.

Lauren: Would you like to describe for our listeners who maybe have not been in a corn pit before what a corn pit it?

Cher: I would love to, Lauren. That’s such a good question. The corn pit is, as you may have deduced by now, an enormous pit of dried corn. It’s kind of like a ball pit, but it’s corn. It’s a few feet deep.

Lauren: Corn kernels.

Cher: Corn kernels. Yes. Thank you. That’s a really important distinction, Lauren.

Lauren: Un-popped corn kernels.

Cher: Un-popped corn kernels but I’m interested in the popcorn pit. Also a pit of dried corn on the cob, still on the cob. That is if you get lost in the corn maze-

Lauren: You are punished with the cob pit.

Cher: (laughs) Yeah, it really is so much fun. It is definitely meant for children but don’t let that prevent you from experiencing the pit. It’s truly amazing. Actually, Lauren ...

Lauren: Do you have a picture of you in the corn pit?

Cher: I do. I have a picture of me in the corn pit.

Lauren: YES!

Cher: I have to find it. I’ll find it later.

Lauren: I’m going to need you to post this to your Tumblr or to Dashboard. Yeah.

Cher: I absolutely will. It’s quite a photo. It used to be the header on my website that it appears, I definitely forgot about and the website is now gone.

Lauren: I think I’ve seen this photo.

Cher: (laughs) It’s very ... draw me like one of your French girls.

Lauren: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Cher: Draw me like one of your farm girls in the corn pit.

Anyway, yeah. I also am looking forward to seeing your corn maze post. I am sorry that I have derailed us from ... gotten us lost so far from the entrance of the corn maze.

Lauren: This is what the corn maze is about. Speaking of getting lost in strange twisty places ... let’s go dive into our archives and do a little bit of Dashboard Confessionals.

[guitar riff]

Cher: The corn pit that is our archives.

Lauren: The corn pit that is our archives. Cher, what do you have from the corn pit this month?

Cher: I really dug deep in the corn pit and found a post from 2014. It felt only right due to the fact that we’re doing a 2014 throwback episode as our main segment. And it’s a text post originally posted by @thisdisgustingribbon. And it reads, “Looks like meat’s back on the menu, boys, “ bellows the orc to his orc friends. Orcs know what menus are. Orcs know what restaurants are. Are there bistros in Mordor? These are the questions I need answering.

Lauren: This is a great question! That does imply the existence of menus in Middle Earth.

Cher: Right? And I just think, first off, if it doesn’t exist already, because it might, I really want the Mordor restaurant fic. I want to know what an orc restaurant looks like. What is an orc waiter like? Do they ... there are so many great follow-up questions and so many fic opportunities. Like an Applebee’s in Mordor ...

Lauren: Yeah. I think the book Legends and Lattes is essentially that concept. I think it’s about an orc coffee shop owner perhaps. It’s like a romance between an orc and someone else. I forget exactly. I’ve not read it to be fair. But it is a very popular cozy romance novel fantasy.

Cher: Oh my gosh.

Lauren: Yeah.

Cher: I did not know about this. I need to look into Legends and Lattes. The answers are there already. I am so excited.

Lauren: The answers are there for you.

Cher: What do you have for us this week, Lauren?

Lauren: I also brought something from 2014. And actually September 2014 is as far back as my current archive goes. Because even though I’ve been on Tumblr since late 2008 or early 2009 I switched blogs. I started a new blog when I started my YouTube channel. And I started my YouTube channel in 2014. So, my current personal private fandom blog goes back to 2014. And this is one of the first posts that I ever re-blogged. It is from @AssassinRegrets who is still an active Tumblr user with a rainbow of checkmarks next to their name, which I love and think is great.

It is a Hannibal post to the tune of the Gaston song from Beauty and the Beast. So, I am just going to sing it for you to give you the full experience.

Cher: I am so excited.

Lauren: No one sweats like Will Graham, has more pets than Will Graham, no one outlines more chalk silhouettes like Will Graham. I use antlers in all my investigating. Oh, what a guy, Will Graham.

I love this post.

Cher: That was beautiful, Lauren. Thank you so much for sharing that with us.

Lauren: Thank you. You’re welcome. You’re welcome. So, yeah. I mean, this is the perfect encapsulation of 2014 to me because 2014 was season two of Hannibal. You know?

I’m just going to transition us into our main topic.

Cher: Let’s do it.

Lauren: I’m going to do a little table setting, if you will.

[game show trill]

Cher: Oh! Perfect for the Hannibal reference ... as well.

Lauren: Oh! Thank you!

So, yeah. 2014 was when the second season of Hannibal was on and the finale, which I think is one of the best episodes of television of all time came out. But also it was the year in which Shake It Off was on the radio all the time. And Ed Sheeran, Maroon Five, Nikki Manage were all over the radio waves. And in terms of what was in the theaters – 2014 was the year that John Wick came out. It was the year that Captain America: The Winter Soldier, one of Tumbler’s most iconic texts came out.

It was just a year that was now ten years ago, which I can’t quite believe. And that I think as we were sort of discussing before we actually started recording, kind of encapsulates the Tumblr experience in many ways. So, yeah, for me 2014 is very much like Taylor Swift’s 1989, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Hannibal.

What encapsulates 2014 for you?

Cher: I would say SuperWhoLock, just as an entire universe. And actually one of the questions I wrote down that we can circle back to was “What is the 2024 version of SuperWhoLock and why is it SuperWhoLock?” (laughs)

Lauren: You’re not wrong. You’re not wrong.

Cher: And then in addition to that, the Tumblr girl aesthetic blogging, grunge skins of it all. I was a huge Skins fan. Still love the show. Haven’t watched it in ages, but I think Skins walked so Euphoria could run. Effie and Rue are the same side of the same coin ten years apart.

Lauren: Totally.

Cher: So, yeah. I would say that was a big part of my Tumblr experience. Very much the aesthetic blogging. I was also a preppy blogger. So, I was deep in that content and then also, yeah, very much ... Lana DelRay.

Lauren: Oh yeah.

Cher: Lana DelRay is so the epitome of the 2014 Tumblr girl or the 2012-2014 2014 era as you were talking about earlier. And then Super Natural literally has been in the corbit ... in the Tumblr universe since before Tumblr even came about. I feel like Tumblr-

Lauren: Yeah, it pre-dates Tumblr.

Cher: Yeah. Tumblr was made to be a home for the Super Natural fandom.

Lauren: It’s really true.

Cher: And so many other things, but that was part of it. (laughs) I’m sure. David didn’t know it at the time. So, yeah, that’s really what it was about. That really, yeah, encapsulates my 2014 Tumblr experience.

Lauren: Well, I think it’s interesting ... when we talk about SuperWhoLock we often talk about 2012, right? Because 2012 in many ways was kind of the height of a particular brand of what we know now as a Tumblr cringe culture. Because it was the very, very tail end of the 2000s scene culture, emo culture, and sort of like meme culture of “I can has cheeseburger” and “rawr” and “XD” kind of all ... 2012 was the very last year that any of that stuff was still kind of on the internet in any significant way.

And then I think we can all agree that culturally speaking, things took a turn in 2016/2017. You and I were both surprised to find that the sayonara wee-a-boo shits post was from 2016. But I think that kind of fits with the narrative that I’m getting at, which is that 2014 was of course when DashCon happened. And I think it really was sort of the peak. 2012-2016 being this very specific Tumblr era. And 2014 kind of being the peak of that particular era. And then of course 2016, in America at least, things politically shifted quite a bit and that I think changed the culture a lot. Also 2014 was I think kind of one of the last good years of Vine. And I feel like ... but we didn’t really get Tik Tok until like I don’t know 2018 is really when it started to actually gain any kind of traction.

So, 2015 to 2017 was kind of this weird dead spot for a lot of the other internet, whereas 2014 I feel like was sort of peak Twitter, peak Vine, it was ... YouTube was sort of entering into a different era, and so yeah. That’s kind of why we’re talking about it today because it’s been ten years since 2014 and it does feel in a lot of ways like the platonic ideal of old Tumblr.

Cher: Yeah. It really ... I feel like even kind of just the overall vibe ... “in the real world” but it really does seem like that, I feel like we’re seeing such a resurgence in terms of like the aesthetics like cores being such a thing and that obviously came up on Tumblr in a big way. Aesthetic blogging gave way to all the cores, which we’re in now. I think the return to kind of ... there’s the return to the Y2K fashion but very much also to that more otts and mid tens ... yeah. Early 2010’s fashion as well. So, the shows that are trending ... I went through our 2014 year in review and looked at the top series and then compared them to the past few weeks that have been trending. And it’s wild how the lists align both in just having the exact same shows – Supernatural, obviously, never left the list. Duh.

Lauren: Incredible.

Cher: Sherlock and Teen Wolf were a couple of the top shows, obviously. Dead Boy Detectives. I would venture to say is a combination of Sherlock and Teen Wolf is my pitch here for comparison.

Lauren: You’re right I like that.

Cher: Game of Thrones was on the list. House of the Dragon. You know? It has been back. The Vampire Diaries. Interview With The Vampire. The Fairly Odd Parents are one of the biggest shows. The Fairly Odd Parents and New Wish is coming out.

Lauren: God.

Cher: Gravity Falls was one of the top shows. Gravity Falls is the top show on Tumblr – has been every single week for the past six weeks. Danny Phantom was one of the top shows. Danny Phantom continues to be one of the top shows. Doctor Who, one of the top shows and also ... I think there was a little, a few years where we didn’t have a new Doctor Who, right? Sometime in the last ten years. Was there a dip off?

Lauren: I think there’s been a year ish, year or two between each new doctor. So, it’s like sometimes you get these dips.

Cher: But yeah, so great year for Doctor Who, obviously, this year. And in 2014. Classic Doctor Who. Yeah, it’s so interesting to see. Going back to music – Taylor Swift, Lana DelRay, all of these artists who continue to thrive and release new music. I think even the music we’re listening to ... Noah Kahn is very I would say Mumford and Sons coded.

Lauren: Yes.

Cher: And they’re so ... a lot of the musical trends and types have continued and changed or are kind of coming back. I feel like just culturally it really feels like there’s this return to kind of that vibe overall in a lot of different ways.

Lauren: I mean, god. When did Take Me To Church come out? Because that I think was also ...

Cher: Oh my god.

Lauren: Oh yeah, it was September 2013. Because I think I saw him in concert on his first tour, off the first album, and I’d only heard Take Me To Church before. And I think that would have been spring of 2014 I think. And yeah. Now of course his most recent album has been really well received. And is fantastic. And oh my god. That’s crazy. That was that long ago!

Also, this is an aside, but I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this but I know him a little bit. You’re so right. I hadn’t really thought about the music aspect of it. But we really are kind of revisiting ... and obviously, some of that just has to do with the fact that it’s like really popular and talented artists, like Taylor Swift, like Hozier, they’re just going to continue making music and that music will continue to be loved by their fans. Right?

So, there’s some sort of inevitability within that. But I do think you’re right in that Noah Kahn and Mumford and Sons was the first thing I thought about when you started talking about music. That is that sort of 2010 to 2015 sound.

Cher: Right? And then Sabrina Carpenter ... I feel like gives off a very Kati Perry and Teenage Dream or like California Girls kind of vibe in so many ways. I feel like the girlie pop, bubble gum, but also kind of like, yeah, pop diva vibe. I feel like there is such a resurgence of that type of music. I mean, obviously pop music never went away. Pop music is pop music. But yeah, I feel like I see ... in the pop girlies that are trending right now ... Charlie XCX ... we had an IRL for her in Tumblr 2014. She was on Tumblr. We did a concert for her. So, even Charlie XCX being huge this year and the Brat Summer is so ... Brat Summer is so Tumblr 2014 coded.

Lauren: Yes, it really is. It’s funny, too. I need to dig into my archive and find this post. I know I’ve re-blogged it a couple of times but it’s one of those posts that it’s like it’s just a sort of vibe post. So, I’ve never tagged it with anything. It’s going to be impossible to find on my own blog. But it’s like someone sort of describing a vibe and it’s like it’s 2014, you’re in the car with your friend listening to this thing, and they show you a funny Vine and it’s sort of perfectly encapsulates that feeling. So, I’ll see if I can track it down.

And I do think there’s something to be said ... I also will post this Vox article I found about how in 2020 when everybody was in quarantine a bunch of people on Tik Tok started becoming obsessed with 2014 Tumblr aesthetic core. I do think there’s this very interesting nostalgia for 2014 specifically. And sort of the internet that we had in 2014 that started to really die in 2015. And I think one of the reasons that I am still so active on Tumblr, and that we have a podcast about Tumblr, and you work there, and we both love this thing so much is because it’s the last stronghold of the good internet that existed in 2014!

Cher: I could not agree with you more, Lauren. I started working at Tumblr in 2014.

Lauren: Yes, exactly!

Cher: Actually, September 14, 2014 was my first day.

Lauren: No way. Oh my god! Well, happy anniversary!

Cher: Thank you so much! It’s been-

Lauren: Ten years and two days!

Cher: A third of my life.

Lauren: That’s crazy.

Cher: Working at Tumblr, essentially.

Lauren: That’s wild.

Cher: Which is wild to think about. And so cool. And yeah, I could not agree with you more. I love working at Tumblr because I still feel like it’s such this special place on the internet. I actually ... one of my co-workers, Joan, described Tumblr as ... she’s our Creative Strategist ... she started describing Tumblr as the internet’s third place. And I feel like that’s such a great way to describe it. because I’ve always said Tumblr is your internet home. Your blog is your bedroom. And you decorate it however you want. You can decorate your dashboard how you want your life to look.

And so yeah, I just am so ... both so nostalgic for that 2014 Tumblr and also feel it so much in kind of the vibes of today and also on the Tumblr of today. We’re seeing a lot of blogs get reactivated again. Blogs that had been not active for the past few years are coming back. I even had a friend recently mention that to me. He said, oh yeah, I re-joined Tumblr and I noticed that a lot of folks, my dashboard is more active again. And so it’s great to see that resurgence. Even my Tumblr them, Lauren, is the 2014 or OG even earlier dashboard. I’ve stayed there.

Lauren: I love that. And I do think ... it’s funny, too, thinking about 2014 was ten years ago. Which is crazy. And then when you think about ten years prior to that ... 2004 ... the difference between 2004 and 2014 cannot be measured whereas 2014 to now feels like much more containable. And I’m sure part of that is the fact that both of us were essentially children in 2004.

Cher: We did a lot of changing.

Lauren: I was 13 years old. Yeah, obviously the different between 13 and being 23 is enormous, but 2004 ... I think I barely gotten my first iPod. I think 2004 actually is the year that my Apple music goes back to, in my first purchased song or whatever. So, yeah. I mean, it’s crazy to think about the ways in which technology has grown sort of leading up to 2014 and in some ways feels like it’s slowed and feels like the internet has kind of ... we sort of made all these huge changes and huge strides with 2014 kind of being the culmination of all of those things and then since then it feels like things have kind of slowed down in a strange way.

I don’t know, am I the only one who feels that way?

Cher: No, I totally see what you mean. I feel like every day or every month there was some new big technological thing that was dramatically impacting how we use the internet or how we interacted with the world. Going from flip phones to Blackberries to iPhones. And just everyone having a smart phone I feel like started right around there is where everyone started having the internet in the palm of their hand, most people did. And so yeah I think those changes and then since then, yeah for the past ten years, everyone has had the internet in the palm of their hand.

We’ve had how many iPhone ... everyone has been holding different iterations of the same iPhone for the past 10-15 years. And so I completely agree with what you’re saying. I feel like everything kind of slowed technologically and then everything exploded content wise.

Lauren: Yes. Yes!

Cher: It kind of felt like back in the day it was so ... it was very easy for me every day to go through my entire dashboard. Now that would be impossible. I could not do that. Also because I now follow so many blogs, but you can’t even do that on any ... Tumblr does not insert a ton of algorithmic content into your dashboard. You’re scrolling and seeing essentially who you’re following and then whatever few ads are in stream. But other socials do. So, you scroll who you’re following and you could never get back to the beginning because you’re scrolling who you’re following and then every other post or even more are the algorithmic “you might like this” kind of inserted posts. You could never get to the end.

And the same with TV and movies. Everyone kind of felt like they were watching the same things. Streaming had just really ... had barely picked up then. And now it’s how can you keep up with everything that’s coming out? And so it’s also interesting to see with the explosion of media how much of the TV and movies that were trending on Tumblr ten years ago are still trending on Tumblr today despite the huge increase in content?

Lauren: God. That is such a good point. The fact that we have kind of become this mono culture when it comes to structures and systems. Right? Everybody has one of three phones. Right? You either have an iPhone, you have a Samsung Galaxy, or you have a Google Android thing, right? That’s it. And if you are on social media you are most likely spending most of your time in one of five places. Right?

You are on Instagram, Tik Tok, Tumblr, Twitter ... one of the theta-verse threads Blue Sky, Mastadon, whatever. But that’s it. And Reddit is kind of its own thing. So, I’m going to leave that aside.

But yeah, we are all sort of operating in a lot of the same ways in terms of the tools that we’re using. But yeah, you’re right, in terms of the content that’s out there there is just so, so much. And because there’s so much and we’ve talked about this so many times on this show – because there’s so much and because so many places that pay for content and for art are focused on getting as many things out to as many different people as possible and sort of having the smorgasbord available to you, things are shorter and shorter lived and so then it’s like shows that are around now when we’re on Tumblr in 2034 and we compare the trending shows then to now, I bet Supernatural will still be trending, as will Gravity Falls and Danny Phantom. But not that many shows from 2024 will be. Right?

And that I think is interesting. Yeah, you’re so right.

Cher: That is so interesting to think about.

Lauren: There’s so much content now that yeah has sort of created this weird variety in a different way.

Cher: It takes so much more for a show to establish a kind of I don’t know grasp on culture in the same long term kind of impactful way. Yeah. That’s such a good point. I can’t even ... I’m trying to think right now of what show right now that has come out in the last couple of years will have the same impact or could have the same impact as Doctor Who or Supernatural or Hannibal .. or even Merlin, which ended before it started trending on Tumblr!

Lauren: Yeah! It was a heartbreaking finale that drove it home.

Cher: And it’s so true. I have tried ... I feel like we need to do another episode on that kind of concept as well because I feel like we could go on ... I have so many more things to say that my brain isn’t letting me say any of them, Lauren.

Lauren: I’m totally with you. One of the things that I feel like we talk about a lot as a culture – by which I mean writers about TV and pop culture and music and the internet. A lot of those people are constantly talking about the mono culture, right? And the fact that we haven’t really had a mono culture for a long time. Other than I think Taylor Swift or Beyonce, right? Those are sort of two of the few artists that have kind of transcended the enormous amounts of different kind of music that you listen to at the press of a button now to sort of everybody around the world knows who Taylor Swift is. Right? Pretty much.

But I think even without sort of the driving mono culture of the I think pre iTunes, pre social media ,kind of pre 2005 days – I think even without that there was still a sense of some degree of mono culture in niche spaces. Right? So, it’s like I do think that Supernatural is part of the mono culture of Tumblr. Right? And so is Merlin. So, is certain Tumblr quirks. All the things that we’ve talked about when it comes to the uniqueness of Tumblr’s eco system. I think as the mono culture.

I think the only mono culture moment that Tumblr has really had ... I think Our Flag Means Death got like close in terms of the bigness of it on Tumblr. But I think Goncharov ... I think Tumblr sort of ... when there wasn’t a mono culture anymore of shows and movies that everybody was talking about Tumblr just created its own. And I love that!

Cher: Oh my gosh, Lauren. That is such a great point. Oh, I’ve never thought of it that way! (laughs)

Lauren: It’s like we needed some sort of unifying thing. And so it’s like well, we’re just going to make this elaborate inside joke. (laughs)

Cher: Oh, absolutely incredible. Another reason why I love Tumblr so much. I mean, where else, what other platform is going to create their own entire film to obsess over because they all need something. What’s the next thing?

Lauren: What can we agree upon?

Cher: Yeah. (laughter) And also, yeah, as you were talking about – everyone using kind of the same five websites. I remember ... I think about Stumble Upon. And how much I loved going on Stumble Upon and finding cool websites and other places on the internet to play around in. And it feels like that is so much less the culture these days. Even with the prevalence of, say, apps and all these other things. There’s cool apps and games that you can play and of course – but it does feel very, very different in the way that it just seems, yeah, that people are using the same few phones as you said, going to the same few websites, and the internet is so huge. It’s full of so much content. What else is out there? What else is afoot?

Lauren: Yeah.

Cher: What other cool websites do we not know about yet?

Lauren: And I think it’s harder to find those things, right? That is a point of discussion I see on Tumblr a lot, too. I don’t know if you have other sort of final thoughts or questions or facts and figures about 2014 to share, but why do you think we – or you specifically – is nostalgic for 2014? What about 2014 personally, for you, makes you nostalgic for it?

Cher: I mean I think there’s a few different things or reasons. I think one is it feels like a very kind of innocent, almost secure time compared to I would say the climate today or especially post 2016. I feel like 2016, things changed so much – especially in the States. I feel like the Tumblr 2014 era feels like a time when everyone was just unabashedly earnest and enthusiastic and caring so deeply about really ... I don’t know, fandom but also ... yeah, it just felt like a very earnest time. I think that is kind of what it encapsulates. It was very hopeful, fun, and people were aesthetic bloggers and all these different types of blogs felt very much like people were kind of building their world and doing it on Tumblr. Or building the world, seeing beyond the world of their favorite show and doing it on Tumblr or whatever it was.

I think that, yeah, really kind of strikes a chord for me. And also I think there’s a part of it where I’m just thinking that I was 21 in 2014 and I’m definitely nostalgic for that kind of ...

Lauren: Youth.

Cher: Honestly. I was so innocent back then.

Lauren: So innocent.

Cher: You know? So mindful, so demure. (laughs) What about you, Lauren?

Lauren: I mean, yeah. Plus one to all of that. And I do think that there’s an interesting kind of collective nostalgia that I think drives my own nostalgia, right? And I do think that we are now in our thirties and the people in their thirties are now driving culture in a slightly different way, right? Youth always drives culture. But then we are now sort of established adults and we are paying for things and whatnot and are establishing culture in kind of a more settled way. So, I think that simply because generationally I think that there is a natural inclination to be nostalgic for your early twenties. Right? I think that we’re now sort of establishing that nostalgia as a cultural norm if that makes sense.

Cher: Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah, I definitely ... I was 23 in 2014 and being 23 is the fucking worst. It is like ... Blink 182 was right. Nobody likes you when you’re 23. It’s just a hard age. And yeah it was hard for me, but then in 2015 I got very, very sick and then I started the Bright Sessions and sort of started this new path of my life. So, 2014 to me also has this weird kind of amber around it of like the last moment of a potential future that I could have had that didn’t exist.

And maybe we’ll do an episode on this at some point even though I’ve never seen anybody talk about it on Tumblr, but I want to figure out how to get people to start talking about it on Tumblr – I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it to you but have you ever heard of hauntology?

Cher: No?

Lauren: So, I went on a whole rabbit hole about this a couple of weeks ago, over the summer. Because I’ve been working on this new project and it involves a lot of sort of diving into my own personal nostalgia around music and then also music in general. And I found this genre of music from the early 2000s in England called Hauntology that’s like about sort of using old methods and things like that and old sound footage and whatnot.

But it’s also like this theory and it’s too complicated to get into now, but basically it is the idea of mourning a future you never had. And I do feel like increasingly that is a huge part of nostalgia for an earlier internet is we had sort of a couple of paths that we could have gone down in terms of what the internet became and I don’t think we took the worst path but I think that we took not the best path. Sort of societally speaking.

But again I do think that Tumblr is sort of the one branch that’s like, oh, the good internet sort of is over here. Tumblr still exists in the world of the internet at-large but it got a little bit closer to the good timeline than everybody else. Anyway ... yeah. I could go on about hauntology and about the specific kind of nostalgia and how it interacts with culture now at another time – but yeah, I think that’s kind of my specific nostalgia. This idea that 2014 was this pivot point and we pivoted in a way that maybe wasn’t the best way. Right? With the years that followed.

Cher: I 100% agree and see what you’re saying there. I would love to do a hauntology episode. Because I feel like there is, yes, so many other paths that we could go down and talk about. Also, as you were talking I was thinking you’re so right – one of the things that makes me so nostalgic for 2014 and I’m sure makes so many other people who kind of came up on the internet around that time nostalgic for 2014 and people who didn’t come up around on the internet at that time but are starting to experience it through kind of that nostalgia existing – was just the potential that 2014 held. Both for ourselves but also for the world at-large as you’re saying.

That potential I think ... it feels like you’re kind of, yeah, going back in time a little when you’re diving into ... there’s so many- I mean, I was looking at all the 2014 tags and in addition to Tumblr 2014 and all of those there’s 2014 revival, 2014 nostalgia, 2014 core and there’s so many of those and so many of the posts are tagged with a lot of the same things. It is kind of like stepping back into that time but also stepping back into 2024’s version of that time. Which largely if you’re on Tumblr looking at 2014 core content or 2014 nostalgia content – yes, it will be people who are like OG’s posting that in 2014. But Tumblr is over 54% Gen Z. So, it will also be a lot of people who are now creating that content for new people to consume. So, they’re having that kind of different type of nostalgia. In the way that we have ... I have such nostalgia for the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Lauren: Totally!

Cher: I love the oldies and I feel like I would have loved to experience living in the late ‘70s or being a teenager in the ‘90s versus being a kid in the ‘90s. I feel like so many people have said that the ‘90s ... It’s really interesting to kind of see that nostalgia happen from both sides of the coin. From us in our thirties and beyond but also people who are much younger than us and maybe weren’t quite in the same internet spaces at that time but are now reminiscing on it.

Lauren: Yeah.

Cher: Or reflecting on it. Yeah.

Lauren: I love that. That’s so well put. Well, I mean, we’re already in our feels. But should we get further into our feels and head over into our Feels Corner?

[gentle music]

Cher: Let’s do it, Lauren.

Lauren: What has you in your feels this month, Cher?

Cher: So, I mean, I think, yes, this entire conversation I’m getting nostalgic. I’m like what shows am I going to queue up to re-watch at the moment? So, I’m definitely in my feels about that. I am also, as you mentioned earlier in the episode, in my feels about last night’s Emmy’s. There were just so many great shows that won and also didn’t win. But I just love award season. I don’t want to get into all my notes about how award shows are and everything now because I feel like that could be a whole other episode and I don’t want to go down that road. But yeah, I’m in my feels about the Emmy’s. Was super excited that Shogun swept. I was excited to see that Hacks did so well. I loved the little Schitts Creek throwback that we got. So, yeah, I would say Tumblr today has me in my feels and also Tumblr in 2014 does, too. How about you?

Lauren: Hell yes. Yeah. I mean, I love ... the Shogun ... I didn’t actually watch the Emmy’s but the Shogun news was really great. And yeah, there’s something about the fact that that’s been FX’s most watched show of the past year I think. And it had crazy viewership. It was critically acclaimed. And then it got all of these Emmy’s. And it’s a show that is subtitled and that is primarily in Japanese. And that has primarily Japanese actors. And I don’t know, there’s just something about that, that really I think cemented in my mind what a different place we are in now than we were ten years ago, right?

It’s interesting. I’ve seen some commentary around Americans maybe being more up for things like Shogun or like Squid Game, right? Things that you’re watching with total ... subtitles. Because a lot of people are putting their closed captions or their subtitles on their TV anyway because of the way in which dialogue mixing has changed. That’s a whole other conversation and certainly like a pet peeve of my own and my partners because we both work in sound and the way that some TV shows are mixed now is completely fucking insane. Regardless of the reason behind it, it’s cool that people are sort of embracing more and more foreign content, right?

And then again on the content side – this past weekend we watched ... it’s funny, me and my partner actually spent a lot of time talking about 2014 this weekend because we were talking about how 2014 sort of had this shift in action and the way that action functions in movies, specifically because of John Wick and because of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Daredevil the next year and things like that. But we watched the new Netflix movie – Rebel Ridge – this past weekend. Which is an action thriller. It was a really fun movie. It was like just very satisfying to watch. It has me in my feels because ... not because it was a particularly emotional movie but because I love action movies, but also it was an action movie that didn’t star anybody super famous. I had never seen the lead guy in anything before. He’s British and so he’s been in some British things but I had never seen him before. And it didn’t look like it cost very much money. There was no CGI. It was a mid range Netflix movie that was written and directed well, it was acted well by people that are not uber famous. And I was just like, yeah, let’s get back to this stuff!

Cher: YES!

Lauren: Let’s do more midrange action movies with no massive CGI explosions, just good hand to hand combat. I’m here for this renaissance.

Cher: Oh yeah. I feel like we’re seeing that so much, too. A return to so many of the types of movies that were far more common 10-15 years ago, which is so interesting given the fact that as we were saying earlier there’s so much more content today. But yeah, I think those types of action movies being back. The rom com returning in a big way, I feel like we’ve seen those come back. Yeah, I’m going to have to ... Rebel Ridge you said?

Lauren: Rebel Ridge. Yeah. And it was number one on Netflix this weekend.

Cher: Love that. See?

Lauren: People are watching it! Yeah!

Cher: I love that, too. I think there is such a market for these types of titles. People want to see a fun good movie. It doesn’t have to be the highest budget with actors that they have heard of or that are in every action movie. There’s obviously a market for that – duh. But I think there’s a huge market that was tapped before and maybe is less tapped now, could be ... I’m really into this metaphor that isn’t really quite working – but I feel like there’s a space in the market that I’m excited is being filled again.

Lauren: Totally. Yeah, absolutely.

And with that ...

And I’m Lauren Shippen, and you can find me at TheLaurenShippen.Tumblr.com.

Cher: And I’m Cher McAnelly and you can find me at OverChers.Tumblr.com.

This has been Dashboard Diaries. And ...

[outtro music]

Lauren: May your anons always be loving.

Cher: Your dash always refreshed.

Lauren: Your gifs always be loading.

Cher: And your ships always canon.

Lauren: May the fics you’re reading always be finished.

Cher: And the answers you seek always in the re-blogs.Lauren: Thanks for scrolling with us!

This month, we travel back in time ten years to the halcyon days of 2014. What makes us so nostalgic for this time? Was this really the peak of the internet? All that is old is new again, so in many ways, it's STILL 2014. Except now, we're in the CORB-it.

Credits and transcript in our reblog. You can find transcripts for this, and every other episode, here.

Find the posts discussed in this episode in this tag!

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survivorkvaloya · 7 years ago

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Episode #5: “I Didn't Come Back To Be A Stupid @$$” - Andreas

Not quite sure what to make of this tribe of 5 but I find in this one theirs no where to hide because I can almost guarantee Jackson is going to be a middle man between Danielle and I, and everyone knows that in this tribe I would be the one they send home. But luckily for me, I have Gage and Christine's students on my tribe so If I send them home it weakens them come merge, but following the murder of 3 returnees early on I can NOT have a repeat of Easter Island, so I need to get over my phobia of returnees.

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MKAY COOL I COULDN"T HAVE ASKED FOR A BETTER SCENARIO IT'S LITERALLY 4 V 1 IS THIS HOW SANDRA AND VARNER FELT

~*~Tales From Reflection Island~*~ Hi. I'm pissed. I was so excited to finally win my first tribal immunity and FINALLY not have to worry about being voted out, but that was short lived. Brett, my flop ass mentor, was voted out on the other tribe almost unanimously. What the HECK. So my gay ass is shipped off to reflection island where I have to "reflect on what went wrong" or whatever. But it ain't my fault Brett is a flop! He was the mentor. He was supposed to know not to get voted out. AND THEN we have a tribe swap.... While I'm on reflection. You know what happened to the last person on reflection island during a tribe swap? They were voted out unanimously the same round they returned (rip Connor). So when I come back I'm gonna have some serious work to do. Going onto a tribe of 5 is scary in itself, not being there when the tribe is formed is even worse. the ONLY saving grace in this whole situation is the reflection ritual or whatever the heck its call. Bc I'm always doing #that and I PICKED AN URN WITH AN IDOL PIECE IN IT WOOOO. Now I have 2/3 pieces! This makes it so much easier to get that last piece and make an idol. And that could save my ass in this tricky situation. My plan once I come back is to victimize myself, talk to everyone, be so devastated by the loss of my mentor, act paranoid, and find that last piece. Wish me luck!

Im actually really frustrated right now, we could have easily won immunity but Lauren messed up very basic instructions and just completely fucked us over. Now we have to go to tribal. Lol 4th tribal out of 5 ugh. So anyways this tribal should be easy however we know how this game goes, the easy vote never happens. But none the less this allows me a valid reason to take Christine's student out which would have completely destroyed all her numbers which means shes 1 which isnt a huge threat. Im just worried about idols ,and tribal on my 200th day is ANNOYING. Anyways i need to go calm down phew. Old Andreas is coming out lmao

So jackson and I had a plan to throw the torch pass challenge and use lauren to get out andreas. funniest part: we didn't even have to throw because lauren posted at the wrong time and fucked it all up! I'm trying to make everyone hate her now so she feels like she has to vote with us. jackson was hesitant at first about voting andreas but he's warmed up to it. I hope he stays with the decision. I really think him and I can fight our way through this game.

i got my 2nd idol piece from fucking hell of looking through numbers! van who??

So I think I already did a confessional but oh well. This tribe swap isn't looking good for me. I ended up not getting the idol piece because Chelsea already got it so that was super annoying. BUUUUT. I got reward this time and Ryan ended up getting his 2nd idol piece from it. I'm happy bc that means we have 2/3 in our posession and I think that he's 100% loyal to me. He's said over and over that this is our idol and I truly believe that. We've been friends for so long that I doubt that he would be using an idol that we both found against me in any way. I'm trying to talk to everyone every day but it's hard when it's one world. I hate it so much fuck fkjdsn. Andreas is kinda annoying and very pushy when it comes to this game. He created an alliance with Jackson and I, which I don't think I'll stick too, to try and talk about the vote. From what I can tell at this point, the vote is going to be Andreas anyway. Although Lauren fucked up in the challenge, people are wanting to keep her around for a throwaway vote if we lost next time (which we are going to if we're going to be keeping the weak players anyway). I'm starting to get annoyed with not being in power. Chelsea is running around only talking game yet telling me that other people will inform me with the plan... I- There is no way that I'm gonna be able to get her out and if god forbid we went to tribal again, it would be Lauren. I'm thinking of teaming up with Lauren to vote out Chelsea if it came down to it, I don't know if that would be the right move but right now, I feel like she's running the game and I want to be the one that takes her off of the high horse that she's sitting on.

Hi I'm Jackson and this is my third confessional, just in time for the third generation of tribes. Ever since the swap, I've kind of had a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach. Not because I was put on a tribe with people I can't work with - in fact, I've had good interactions with everyone on my new tribe in the past, and best of all, I'm reunited with my closest ally Chelsea. Instead, the feelings of dread come from the fact that a lot of power was given to the two of us to start making moves of our own, and it's scary to no longer be floating in the background, hiding behind our mentors. Still, Chelsea and I both feel like we can't shy away from the opportunity we've been given. So, we planned to throw the immunity challenge. I had two objectives in mind for this. The first was to allow Colin to join our tribe after his return from exile, as he's someone I really trust and I couldn't guarantee his safety if he went to another tribe. The second was to vote out Andreas, who I see as one of the smartest and most well connected players in the game. We were going to have Chelsea pretend her internet went out, which I'm honestly not 100% sure would've worked without attracting suspicion. But then Lauren decided to do what I think she does best: go inactive without explanation. Since she queued her post for the wrong time, our torch lighting was out of order from the get go, and we had no chance of winning unless Lauren came online at just the right time (which she didn't). So yeah, we lost, and I guess me and Chelsea got our way. Right off the bat Lauren was scrambling. She came to me and Chelsea for help, asking us to stay united as original Ersfjorden members, which normally I'd roll my eyes at because she's suspicious af to me but was happy to hear in this specific moment. With me, Chelsea, and Lauren, we have three, and can vote out Andreas like we planned (or, at least, like Chelsea pushed really hard to and I agreed only after talking to my mentor because I'm a weenie). Andreas was acting pretty jumpy too. I think he really doesn't want to get voted out on his 200th day of tumblr survivor, and yeah, I get that and I'm gonna feel real bad casting my vote. He really helped me get my footing on Ersfjorden 2, and we could've had a nice working relationship even though he probably would beat me at the end. Anyway, he came to me pushing hard to get Lauren voted out to keep the tribe strong, and I told him I was definitely on board. His worry was not that Danielle would flip on us (more on that later) but that Lauren would somehow make an idol with Chelsea, who I can tell he doesn't totally trust. Joke's on him - Colin has the idol piece that everyone thinks Lauren has, but I'm not gonna tell anyone. I tried to reassure him that Chelsea's on our side too, and I'm hoping his guard is down. Danielle is the wild card. Even though we could vote out Andreas without her (assuming Lauren isn't the fucking mastermind of the millennium), I wanted her to be in on this vote because I think she will stick with me postmerge. Ryan likes her, and I don't want to go against him (yet). So I told Danielle that Lauren was pushing for Andreas, and she seemed tentatively supportive of the idea to vote him out now with Lauren being the next to go if we lose again. She also sent me her reward, which was a clue to an idol piece hidden somewhere on the blog. Long story short, the URL involves a five digit code starting with a 7 and including no repeating digits. It's basically impossible to determine the URL from that (unless i've already gotten it right but someone got their first and the page was deleted?) without more info, and I don't think the hosts would give such a difficult riddle. So yeah I think she didn't send me the entire clue (she withheld some of the digit hints), which kind of annoys me because she's trying to gain my loyalty by supplying intel but she doesn't trust me enough to let me have a chance at finding it myself. Also I shared literally all the details about JD and Liam's shitty alliance on Ersfjorden2 that locked out her and her student, so I feel like I'm giving out more than I'm getting back. But anyway, though she says she's on board for the Andreas vote (making it 4-1 against him), I worry that she's concerned about my relationship with Chelsea. I also worry that she's closer to Andreas than she claimed (and than Ryan thought), and that she might have ratted me out to him. While it doesn't seem like there's a lot he could do if he did know we were targeting him, there's a slim chance he could try to pull Lauren over. In that case, it'd be either me or Chelsea going, and considering how many more limbs I've gone out on than usual this week, I'm not feeling super safe. So yeah, that's about it, so unless something changes in the hours before the vote tomorrow, this is it. I'll be voting for Andreas and hoping I didn't get duped.

Looks like everything is still good to go with the Andreas vote. Sorry bud! The ship has sailed ~

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Whelp, operation save Brett was a flop and I'm sad. But on the bright side I'm in love with this swap! It's nice to be reunited with Ryan and I'm glad QuilLynn is still with me. JD also seems really nice and then I haven't really talked to Nicholas yet. I'm glad we were able to win immunity but I'm kinda worried for Lauren. I feel like Jackson and Chelsea will help her but we'll see.

Going into tribal its been really quiet and that's been scaring me. No one is really talking to me besides Jackson but I could just be acting like a crazy person but who freaking knows. Hopefully this tribe votes out Lauren but maybe tonight, as my 200th night in TS will be my final. I hope not though, I don't wanna be a pre-merge flop.

Omg so the whole point of last vote was to get rid of Brett bc he is a bigger threat then jack and he would be more likely to be able to convince Lauren and Christine to flip. And of course we don't tell jack about the vote bc he really wanted Chelsea, but then of course he fucking ends up on my swapped tribe. I'm really happy I'm with Gage again bc he's definitely someone I trust and he's really nice, I'm also kinda glad to see lily And I'm hoping we can continue to work together. Jack ahhh I didn't tell him about the last vote so I don't think he trusts me anymore but he's nice. So that leaves Liam as the only person I hadn't met yet, I exchanged like 2 words with him and then he tells Ryan that he's talked to me the most? Like how is 2 lines a lot of conversation?? I mean I feel bad for him being super busy with 2 jobs and everything but he doesn't talk to me a lot and when we actually do talk it's always at 3 in the morning. So anyway last night Liam goes up to me and says hey I have an idea for if we ever have to go to tribal council, and he was talking about how me him and jack should work together and I agreed to it of course bc you should never really say no to alliances bc that's sketchy. I also found out that it was Liam and JD who created the majority alliance, like this boy seems kinda power hungry tbh. Anyway Kalfjorden looses immunity which is fine but I just hope it's not Chelsea, Andreas or Danielle. And then apparently Lauren has been super inactive and messed up on the challenge so it would make sense to vote her out and everyone seemed on board or whatever. But then in the all girls alliance, that I like the idea of but don't really feel comfortable with half the people in it, lily talks about how we gotta save Lauren. And at first I'm like wtf Lauren is cute and all but she's not the most active and I don't care about her that much. And Lily says that all the newbies are on board to vote together to vote out FUCKING ANDREAS. Like wtf I love Andreas?? And he's trying at this game unlike Lauren. And also lily goes oh yeah it'll be nice to vote out Andreas so that we can keep up student numbers like??? I'm a mentor??? I'm of course willing to work with students but not when they say they would like to vote out all the mentors lmao. I would tell Andreas but I won't bc I need to keep up my trust with lily especially since we're on a 5 person tribe where there's no room to hide. Anyway I could see if I could possibly talk to Jackson who I don't know well if he'd be willing to vote Lauren, ahh idk what I'm gonna do I hate this.

Im actually very concerned I may be going home tonight and part of me is thinking that perhaps i should throw my vote at Chelsea incase an idol is played. I don't see Christine letting Lauren go without a fight and I would be a great person in her eyes to take out pre-merge. Heading into this vote im super concerned, probably more then i've been in a while which is super scary. I didn't come back to be a stupid ass but its so freaking quiet, and I don't see Lauren going without a fight.

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loving-villanelle · 7 years ago

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cotton candy, rocky road, butter pecan, chocolate chip, mango, black cherry, neapolitan, chocolate marshmallow, toffee, ginger, mint, green tea

cotton candy: three places you want to travel to?

1. Europe

2. Hawaii

3. Australia

rocky road: favorite songs at the moment?

-Despacito, Slow Hands, Praying, What About Us, Now or Never, Chained to the Rhythm, Rockabye, 24K Magic, Chanel, Want You Back, Sign of the Times

butter pecan: favorite songs for life?

-Gosh, I could go on forever so I’ll just name a few: Everlong-Foo Fighters, 1000 Times-Sara Bareilles, Late to the Party -Kacey Musgraves, Follow Your Arrow- Kacey Musgraves, Between Us- Peter Bradley Adams, Phantom of the Opera soundtrack, Hallelujah-Multiple Artists, All of the Stars-Ed Sheeran, Hands Down-Dashboard Confessional, Tell Her You Love Her- Echosmith, Same Love-Macklemore & Mary Lambert, Stars & Boulevards-Augustana, Sweet & Low-Augusta, Anything by Andrew McMahon (Jesus that was my short list lmao)

chocolate chip: what's your most popular post?

-I’m sorry but what is a popular post??? I don’t understand? Lmao. I don’t think I’ve ever had a post that could be considered popular

mango: when and why did you start your blog?

-I started it in the Spring of 2009. It was right after Grey’s Anatomy season 9 finale and I had a lot of feelings and needed somewhere to vent lol

black cherry: four words that describe you?

-Sleepy, hungry, sarcastic, fangirl

neapolitan: things that stress you out?

-uhhhh...life in general? lol. but really

chocolate marshmallow: favorite brands of candy?

-If it contains peanut butter, I’m in. My favorite candy bar is probably Snickers Peanut Butter

Toffee: a card game that you're good at?

-Euchre

Ginger: a new feature you wish tumblr could have?

-I wish it would let you delete just one comment without having to delete every comment. Because sometimes i see a post but then there will be a comment that I just don’t want to circulate or have on my blog, but I don’t have the option of getting rid of just that comment, if you hit the “x” it deletes every comment on the post and often times the original poster’s title or comment or whatever they happened to put on the post would get deleted as a result and I don’t like doing that. I hope that makes sense.

Mint: the most embarrassing thing you've ever done?

-Skinny dipping...in broad daylight...with neighbors within eyeshot

green tea: favorite flavors of ice cream?

Chocolate chip cookie dough and peanut butter fudge!

Thank you!! :))

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decadence-meditations · 8 years ago

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watching the new girls rituals video and having some thoughts about truisms and some other thoughts about paranoia and mental illness and femininity

uh first off the truisms. always struck me as Symptomatic that kids on Tumblr really like sharing Jenny Holzer pieces as direct text. I think that’s what it usually is; I see a lot of IT IS IN YOUR SELF INTEREST TO BE VERY TENDER and not a lot of THERE IS BLOOD AND MORE BLOOD. In public spaces, her work is disruptive, catachrestic. On Tumblr, the reproduced pieces’ text is an expression of the reblogger’s worldview or blog aesthetic. and if i have to be clear about this that’s NOT a criticism of those posters or of the tumblr platform; i’m far from convinced that they’re “worse” in this format, and curation and unironic re-expression is absolutely a form of art-making that deserves to be taken seriously.

so the new girls rituals video has a bunch of truisms thrown up in block letters over color-shifted landscape pan shots. Some are explicitly about the current political moment (CLEAN WATER FOR ALL, A SKY WITHOUT DRONES, END SOLITARY CONFINEMENT), some are not. In the past it’s been kind of hard for me to decide how sincere she’s being, because her lyrics are confessional to the extreme while her style is intensely self-aware. these aren’t contradictory, of course, but they make it harder to get one solid reading of her music. my usual reading is that her work is concerned with the way your real actual feelings and thoughts are mediated and repressed by society. anyway, more recently she’s seemed to show a thematic interest in conspiracy theories and the paranormal, one that’s reflected (this feels creepy but whatever!) in her social media postings, which have gotten more

ok skipping ahead because i dont wanna lose the crux of this & it’s late, the truisms in her video are there because she believes them, and because maybe you have thought them at some time. there’s no point in evaluating their truth; the point is to let you accept their music into your heart, and take from them what you will. jenny holzer’s truisms interrupt the propaganda of giant buildings and the privatized capitalist masculinity of supposedly public spaces, unavoidable in everyday life; the truisms in the Black Cloud video offer a gentler and more open version of the calls to arms coming from so many different voices, mixed and algorithmically prioritized into a paralyzing cacophony by systems deeply allied with the emerging global white nationalist authoritarianism. The music playing around us is millenarian, and its timbre is so harsh. following the news cycle feels a little like the first episode of bsg, where they have to warp every 33 minutes and must continually review new damages. Girls Rituals’ music says the facts are here, the apocalypse is apparent, and the knowledge you need is not an editorial’s voice but the knowledge already within you. Wow this last paragraph did not go where I was originally planning go to bed

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survivordivergent · 8 years ago

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EPISODE 4 - “I WANT TO REACH MY GOATENTIAL” - GEO

Welcome to Survivor Divergent, where's it's 14 inactive people and 6 people actually playing

I'm pretty damn busy today grading final assignments, and I'm pretty sure my frustration yesterday was enough to paint a target on me going forward, but I don't much care. This tribe's work ethic is for shit. I don't belong here. I can't just sit back and not do things. Ed can't, either, because it's such a deep-seated belief of mine that it permeates through him too. Not submitting things is just not my speed.

What pisses me off more than anything is that so far, I've been the only one to put in any concrete work. Percy got the theme based on a writing prompt. Payton's been offering suggestions. Dani's offered to do both the poster and the write-up. Meanwhile, I did the poster (deliberately at a level below what I know I can do, because I've been saying all along that I'm not good with Photoshop.) I did the write-up. Last time I felt so alone in one of these creative challenges, my tribe lost and I was the one sent packing at the next tribal council.

It's bullshit. I hate it I hate it I hate it. And while I love the people on this tribe based on our limited interactions, Peter can fuck off back to the inactivity pool from whence he came. Lucy can find a clue while she's busy finding a last name. And Geo... man, Geo is the biggest disappointment of all, only because we've SEEN what he can do. And it's like he's choosing not to do it. I get that we all have lives and that we're all super busy. I'm running myself so ragged that I'm going to hibernate clear through the holidays.

But that's the key difference: you make time if it matters to you. And if this game doesn't matter to anyone else, why should it matter to me? More importantly, if I get to jury, where's my motivation to vote for any of these people who couldn't — or wouldn't — step up when they're needed?

This is frustrating. I miss Megara Tribe. I miss Bondoso Tribe. I even miss Drohend Tribe. I like tribes that work hard, like each other and trust each other as a result. And this tribe fits maybe one of those three criteria. It sucks.

Six: The amount of posts in our tribe chat per day. God damn.

I'm pretty sure the hosts hate six. Like.

On 12/18/16, at 12:09 AM, Payton Rodriguez wrote: > also, y’all are rigging this against the 90% inactive tribe

On 12/18/16, at 12:10 AM, Payton Rodriguez wrote: > its not mine and ed’s fault that the rest of them are flops like if we went offline for three days the world would fall apart and you know it

no, i dont think they're actively rigging. i think my tribemates are sabatoging and we're not gonna have fucking numbers going into merge. sluts.

Okay so it's been a while, let's see if I can catch up. Last time I made a confessional I was stuck on trying to find the Erudite idol. I was so frustrated, and then we lost reward. I didn't want there to be a chance that someone from Six would find the idol, since the clues stack, so I panicked and asked Melissa for help. She figured it out in 2 seconds bc stupid me doesn't know the alphabet or how to count. Ugh. So we work through the next few pages, and then we get stuck again. But after looking at it for a few minutes, I realized I needed to use the keypad on a telephone to get the next word, and I figured it out. To show some good faith, I tell Melissa right away, but the next page.... whew. I looked at that page for a good half hour and couldn't figure it out. Then I'm reading what's on the page and it looks like song lyrics? So I decided to google them. I copy and paste it into google, and i noticed in the search bar are words I did not see before. So I go back to the page and highlight everything. Sneaky Jenna hid the link to the next blog in white lettering on the page. Very clever. So I go to the next blog, and I need another password. Crap. Well, I'm hoping that whoever is looking for this idol on the Six tribe gets stuck at the password too, so they wont be ahead of me. I decide to not tell Melissa that I figured it out. I want to see if she comes to me with that information. And she does, the next day. So I know I can actually trust Melissa. Like, I know I'm in an alliance with her, but I wanted to like, test her trust? I guess? So there's where we are on the idol journey...

I've been talking to Jill bc, you know, former Candor, and she brings up starting an alliance with Kyle. Me, already being in an alliance with Kyle, am completely down for this. Jill's plan is to have a former Candor/Amity alliance with me, Kyle, and Will, and bring in Melissa as a 5th so we have majority. Kyle and I, already being in an alliance with Melissa, are completely down for this. We decide to tell Melissa about this alliance, because we want Ugly Fruti to be our core, our majority within the majority, if that makes sense. Melissa seems fine with it.

So then we wind up winning the Battleship Immunity, and I am really enjoying not going to Tribal. If we can keep it this way until merge, that would be fantastic. Things have been really quiet around the tribe lately. I haven't been on much because of things irl, but I'm going to try and be around more. I dont want to be first boot from this tribe for inactivity, even though there are people who are way less active than me. I'm just hoping our movie poster is enough to win reward so we can continue on that Erudite clue...

Every single day, I feel myself slowly becoming someone that I am not. And honestly, I kind of like that.

I think Payton is pretty set on getting to know who I am but I'll keep bouncing that carrot in front of her face because the longer I keep her focused on my identity over the game that I want to play, the better it is for me in the long run. Payton is a threat because shes so talkative (albeit annoying as hell) and has Percy in her back pocket. She even came to me and said,

[10:14 PM] Payton Rodriguez: So I think I kinda decided Percy would be safe if we went to tribal again, at least from my vote? He really did help with making that poster look good

Of course that's a valid excuse but you should be willing to vote off anyone at any given moment in time. I don't care who we're going after, but I kind of think that Peter does need to go next. He's just going to do whatever people tell him to do later and he contributes almost nothing to my game, except acting like a little pawn for the time being.

I still have my Abnegation idol, so I'm going to hold onto it as long as possible. I think this is an idol I need to use on myself only because if I try to use it to make a huge move, like playing it on the target to get rid of a threat, then it could backfire and if my own target ends up getting saved, I could go out on a revote. If I just had the regular old thing, then I'd be more willing to be #dauntless and whip it out to save someone else and *ciera voice* make big movez.

Also I'm being really patient with myself and trying to make a lot of spelling/grammar errors and ignoring most forms of punctuation. I want to, in addition, have perfect grammar, spelling, punctuation on my regular account so that people are somewhat confused about my identity. I'm still going with my "pretty, spoiled girl" image that I'm adopting so that everyone thinks that I'm two completely different people. Maybe its working, maybe its not. But I need to start cutting the bullshit and start being as realistic as possible. No more talking about the unrealistic life I don't have, but being real. I have to adopt true parts of my own personality so I'm not looking like a bullshit artist. I have that tumblr blog, so maybe i should share it with the people so they choose to follow me and understand that maybe this is something i'm committing to. we'll have to see how that works out for me, of course.

ok i know im not supposed to but i cant help but get uncharted flashbacks rn im sure its not but lake is giving me ari vibes

Gosh it's been a long time since I've made one of these.

Nothing has really happened. We've been winning immunity and I haven't really helped at all.

I've been trying to staybtalkative with the most active members of the tribe and I feel like there's at least 2 or 3 people that could be voted out before me.

I feel so bad cause I havent done one of these in a long time. Im usually good with confessionals <.< sorry hosts.

I feel like im wadting time with the amity idol but oh well ill keep chugging along

Dani scares me. Theyre really smart, they know who i am, and i feel like theyre not playing with abnegation (obviously they werent from thay tribe) and theyre gping to use it against me. I want to get her oyt, but i think shes better connected to people, therefore attempting to do so will get me oyt instead, and i want to play with loyalty, i dont want to ve a flipper again and again. Dani is in an alliance with me so that wont be good as the others may be wary of me.

Im concerned as well as people arent actually talking that much to me. They dont message me, only dani and payton. I love payton or logan if it is them and i believe theyre going to be a bigger target ahwad of me in the future.

I want to play a very goat game. Previously my competitors and friends viewed me as someone who cant win and is very well aligned and a flipper. I havemt made ftc, and thats my goal. I dont care about anything else. If im loyal and very nonthreatening, people will want to take me as they view me as a goat and i could potentially use that strategy to win? I want to reach my goatential, and see whether i can lose at the end or not. Hopefully i dont.

Im typing this on my phone and i didnt put the heading, sorry for all my messiness. #Goatential #Geoat #loyalty #noflippers #mystrategy

I want to conspire to vote Dani out. I think that might be too risky right now but I don't trust her.

I'm glad we won tribal! But I really, REALLY want to send Dani home. Like, yesterday.

I'm tired of people outside the game talking to me about this game. Stop.

Um, it's been a confusing past few days. The biggest things to come out of them:

1. Six won immunity! Woo hoo! Payton was trying to argue that they were throwing it, but I refuse to believe that. We cam together as a tribe and we showed how much more effective we are when we work together, and that's that. So I guess another way of saying it would be, I don't care what they did. I care about what we did. And we crushed it. And frankly, as great as Payton has been for moral support and activity, her frequent willingness to couch thoughts with 'if's and 'but's really rubs me the wrong way. That's not the way winners think.

1a. That said, Payton is still my #1 for now. She's got a tremendous grip on the tribe socially and is realistically one of the shot-callers around here. The longer I can stay under the radar and vote with her, the more likely I can make merge. And then we're golden.

2. Danielle approached me with 'evidence' that Payton took the advantage, but it was very... sketchy. Which is not to say I don't believe it. I had my suspicions. But I wonder if Dani is trying to throw Payton under the bus for something. There seems to be some bad blood there for reasons I can't fathom.

3. Payton approached me with 'evidence' that Danielle or Geo are fabricating receipts, but it was very... sketchy. Which is not to say I don't believe it. It seems like something both would do, based on what little I know of them. But I wonder if Payton is trying to throw Dani under the bus for something. There seems to be some bad blood there for reasons I can't fathom.

3a. Déjà-vu is the sensation of seeing something you feel like you've seen before.

4. This Erudite idol is maddening. 'Center from the start?' What the hell is that??? I've tried everything – the letter a, the titles on each of the blogs, the word 'hosts' which is the 'center' block on the 'start' page, every past clue in every single blog... I know the clue points to a page on one of the blogs I've already visited, as opposed to the latest one. But I'm so stuck and it's so frustrating and I can only hope others are as hopelessly irritated as I am. I need that next clue, and hopefully this time it'll be something new rather than something I'd already been trying. Talk about bad luck.

5. Peter has been very quiet, but at least he showed up for the comp.

6. Lucy has been very quiet, but at least she showed up for the comp.

7. Geo has been very quiet, but at least he showed up for the comp.

3a. Déjà-vu is the sensation of seeing something you feel like you've seen before.

I will make a longer confessional if I survive tribal, which honestly, I think I will. Me, Kyle, and Melissa are in alliances with pretty much everyone on the tribe, so I think we are fine. The vote should be for Amanda, which is a relief for more than one reason. One, she's getting on everyone's nerves, and two, its so weird for people to be talking about Amanda and to remember its not me. There's only room for one Amanda in this game, hun! Ahhh anyway, after this tribal, we are supposed to be on a holiday break for a while, but I have a feeling before that happens, we are gonna be split into 3 tribes of 5. I'm really hoping not, but if so, I have Kyle and/or Melissa with me, or that I end up on a tribe with a Four Tribe majority. Ahh okay, I'm out til later

#iwillbecomesomethingelse

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