#when I seen it to me editing of videos means like using clips for vines and taking out clips for compilations and stuff

[diamondsandlemons]

I like this image because it’s not about, like, “cancelling” these dudes, or whatever. it’s just about no one being able to live up to the monumental expectations fandom spaces can create for them.

the post I saw it on just now was about how these guys were ‘put up on a pedestal’ and then eventually let people down in some way, and as a result became less universally acclaimed (and how the stage is being set up for the same to happen to Jerma)

but like none of these dudes are really bad at all, they just had the internet’s spotlight move on from them to someone else (I think all of them are still making content). They made some kind of misstep, very publicly, which alienated some fans, who then voiced valid complaints, which prompted people who were never fans to hop on the bandwagon of complaining, and that’s why they sort of left a sour aftertaste around for a while... I think I finally get it.

and I mean yeah, they’re all white men, so trusting them implicitly was never a good idea. but it can be really hard to unlearn all the harmful shit you grow up with. and as far as I can tell, these guys are trying their hardest, so I think they’re safe.

that this Effect is named after John Green is a little confusing to me; I think whoever made the edit must be a bit older than me, or at least got Online (and specifically on tumblr) somewhat before I did. Because as long as I’ve been here John Green has been somewhat of a laughingstock on this site. Which I never understood, having been a fan of the Green brothers beforehand. but yeah I think I get it now, it isn’t pure hatred, it’s just the hipster effect.

I don’t know much about Thomas Sanders other than having seen a few of his Vines(?) back in the day. Always seemed harmless. I never got why people treated him like some kind of “cringe” interest. bc he talked about Steven Universe, I guess? Whatever, man.

The McElroys... this one hits hardest for me (insofar as any of these circumstances are “hits,” which they really aren’t, that’s the point. but anyway). I think I’ve befitted from not really participating in fandom conversation. I had no idea there even was any drama until Travis’s Among Us meltdown made national news. That definitely left a bad impression on ppl who didn’t already know who he was, which I assume was the purpose of the whole twitch streaming thing. After having finally seen the clip, everyone’s right, it’s awful. But Travis’s whole deal is being the annoying middle brother; making an ass of himself one time does not cancelling material make. I didn’t even know until watching Sarah Z’s video that TAZ: Graduation was unpopular! I (a noted not-so-great media analyst) had a lot of fun with Graduation! Until like, the very end of the last episode. But after hearing the criticisms, I don’t blame anyone for quitting.

Anyway MBMBaM is still funny, their new theme song slaps, and TAZ: Balance is one of the greatest stories ever told (especially in its original audio podcast format). Moving on.

I don’t know Jerma much outside of being the new meme guy, but he seems nice and he seems to know his audience. It does sort of seem inevitable that it will grow too large and he’ll disappoint them. but, like the rest, that doesn’t necessarily mean he won’t still be a fun dude at the end of the day.

I guess if there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s to really consider WHY unpopularity strikes when it does. If you’re vibing with the crowd, go ahead and leave them behind. But if you’d prefer to stay, that’s okay too (as long as no one’s getting hurt). As much as it is possible to kill cringe culture, do so, and just like what you like*

*(again, as long as it isn’t actively harmful... which some things are, which is why you need to consider why.. etc etc etc).

That’s this white girl’s late night thoughts thank you good night.

[do-what-the-knight-tells-you]

I wonder too if part of it is the way that audio functions on TikTok? Because I think the audio clips that many people set their videos to are the things that are actually more or less going viral and getting popular.

I do think there are particular TikToks that make a splash the way that old vine videos did... But way more a particular audio clip and or perhaps a style of video that goes along with it are the things that catch on and stick.

So sometimes this means particular piece of a song ("Don't want to live as an untold story" over epic shots, or The smash mouth "some.... BODY once told me ..." Edit where there's a long pause in the middle, usually for someone too make a mistake, and then the "BODY" doesn't hint till the person crashes or falls over or something breaks or whatever the beat drop is, or the way that the wellerman song or Old Town Road took off...), or sometimes it's original audio... "Look here comes a consequence, consequence, consequence, consequences of my actions chasing me right now..." Is one that comes to mind. And I remember the original video, but I also many times have seen other things using that audio clip.

And I could sit here and list audio clip after audio clip that I now know just like I know vine videos? ("EMOTIONAL damage, eMOTIONAL damage", the reading rainbow visual that's making the rounds right now, the "I fucked Cthulhu good" uke song, "No darling it's not a pomegranate, what do you think it is, give it another go.", That really rad how to train your dragon theme song remix, "whatever this fuckin thing is" "I'mma be a bumpin blueberry. Ba ah puh bap pub ha", "Here comes the boy" and the like five variants of that, "HOW DID THIS. BECOME THIS.", "Did I really just forget that melody?" "Duh duh duh, da-duh.." "🎶when I popped off then...", That one piece of like Celtic fiddle music- probably like a drop kick Murphy's song- where everyone flips their shoe at the beat drop and then is dressed Usually in a really cool way, "oh no, oh no, oh no no no no no")

There's something sort of I don't know. Inherently transformative maybe in the platform? Because it has tools like using other videos' audio or dueting or stitching other videos built in, it's sort of invites remixing things. I think in a way that like vine never did.

An individual joke or piece of a video from Vine would be preserved a lot more in its entirety and as it was originally dropped, Definitely at least partially due to the brevity, but also because it wasn't immediately easily taken apart so that people could riff on other elements of it. whereas I think things feel like they hit the same to people on TikTok, but they rarely stay the same as they were when they dropped? If that makes sense. That one piece of video doesn't necessarily make the rounds forever, but most folks saw it or saw an early riff on it and the idea paired with the audio, that hits. And so they either duet that, or they make their own version of it if the original audio has been made available.

(another example, I don't think I ever saw the original video that did the audio sample "che la Luna, Louis prima" with the pinched hand shake, But I have seen about a million versions either playing it straight, and pairing the audio and that hand gesture with things that are good, or perhaps inverting it and pairing it with things that suck, etc)

like, i’m pretty sure tiktok has existed for longer than vine did at this point but i’m yet to actually see an “iconic” tiktok. like people always caption like “this tiktok is ICONIC” but i’ve never seen one stay in the public consciousness for any longer than the 2 minutes it appears on my timeline. i never see people quote tiktoks or like, act them out with their friends or anything, not a single tiktok i’ve seen has had any actual staying power

meanwhile i can just say like “ROAD work ahead?” and i would bet a good chunk of you have just read that in the guy’s voice. i still see people tag things like “i wish i was jared, 19″. one night at the bar where i work we started an impromptu dance party purely by saying “hi, i’m renata bliss, and i’ll be your freestyle dance teacher”

i guess brevity really is the soul of wit

[gukiee]

Also can I just say @ the anon or anons who ATTACKED PEOPLE over the whole headline thing to the point of making them feel so shitty they deleted gif sets they worked hard on: you can LITERALLY go f*ck urself tbh

[shirlleycoyle]

Why This Teen Walked Away From Millions of TikTok Followers

This is part of a special series, The Future of Fame Is the Fan, which dissects how celebrity became so slippery. It’s also in the latest VICE magazine. Subscribe here. 

Sixteen-year-old Ava Rose Beaune was hanging out at a friend’s house on an otherwise unremarkable mid-July afternoon when her cell service briefly shut off. She tried to text her dad, but it wouldn’t send—definitely odd, she thought, but not alarming.

Then people started messaging her: Did you see what’s on your Twitter? Your Instagram? What’s going on? She logged on to her social media accounts and saw that her new Facebook status alluded to suicide—but she hadn’t posted it.

“My whole family thought I was going to kill myself,” Ava said.

Suddenly, a man she’d never met was calling her parents, demanding to speak to her. He had control of all her contacts, texts, emails, and social media accounts. The next day, he texted her: I just want to talk to you. (Spoken and written quotes from Ava’s alleged stalker are italicized to indicate they are not necessarily direct quotes but are as she remembers them.) He called her, and she answered, begging him to do whatever he wanted to her Instagram account, if that’s what he was after. “Delete it. Delete it and leave me alone if that’s what you want,” she told him. You don’t want that, he said. “I do,” she replied. I just want to meet up with you and have sex with you, he said.

“That’s when I hung up the phone, and I was like, this is getting weird,” Ava told me. This stranger had managed to hack her accounts using a method called SIM swapping, in which he contacted her wireless service carrier and convinced them that he owned the account and needed them to transfer access to the SIM card to the phone in his hand—effectively taking over her digital life.

In screenshots viewed by VICE, the hacker can be seen posting a Story to her Instagram about being Ava’s new boyfriend, issuing rape threats, and writing things like “I can’t wait til I impregnate you and marry you. you only live 5 MIN away from me.” She got her social media accounts back in her own possession and resolved the problem with her carrier. “OK, this is, you know, the end, whatever,” she recalled thinking.

With more than 2 million followers on TikTok, Ava was a minor celebrity in her own circles. So, she said, she was used to men being creepy, or even hostile. This was extreme, she thought, but it was over.

But it wasn’t. This was only the beginning of weeks of daily harassment so severe it would uproot her life entirely.

As of this year, TikTok likely has more than 1 billion monthly active users, and the market research firm Statista estimates that adolescents between 10 and 19 years old make up 32.5 percent of those users. The spiritual successor to Vine, TikTok is a micro-video sharing platform that favors an off-the-cuff, do-it-yourself style: People of all ages lip-sync to movie clips and songs, mimic elaborate dances in their living rooms, and use filters to edit the 60-second videos into tiny works of art. It’s also something of a fame lottery.

All this manic, frenetic energy combined with massive audiences is addictive in the same way any social media platform is: with casino-style scrolling and a notification system and the looming chance at virality. Normal teens like Ava—who signed with a talent agency in January 2020—become voracious consumers as well as unstoppable creators, hoping to strike it big, get discovered, or at the very least, make it to the For You feed, where one video plucked by some mysterious algorithm from a user’s feed can get in front of millions of eyeballs instantly.

“I’d rather not give those people the satisfaction of being noticed.”

Despite all this, cyberbullying experts say that TikTok isn’t the worst social media app for harassment. “The way that TikTok is built reduces the likelihood of cyberbullying when compared to other apps,” said Sameer Hinduja, the co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center. Features like direct messaging that only allow mutual followers to contact each other, and the inability to add images or videos to comment sections, set it apart from other apps. “To be sure, cyberbullying can manifest itself in hurtful TikTok videos directed towards others, as well as in comments and in livestream chats—but these possibilities are no different than on any other social media app,” Hinduja told me.

According to TikTok’s transparency report from 2020, 2.5 percent of videos the platform removed were for bullying or harassment. But there are some features unique to TikTok that make it prone to a different, more personal kind of harassment. “Duet” allows other users to repost your video with a split-screen video of their own. Most of the time, it’s used innocently, for singalongs or miniature skits. But some users say it opens a portal for disturbing abuse. In 2018, BuzzFeed News reported that people—often young children—would duet their videos with a video of them acting out suicide, putting plastic bags over their heads or belts around their necks, to show their disgust at the original post. And a Duet from a more popular account can send a wave of attention from their followers to your page, not all of it positive.

Nick, who runs a TikTok account with his five-year-old daughter Sienna (the family goes by their first names publicly, to protect their privacy), told me that they experience Duet-based harassment on top of the usual comment section cruelty. “Some users would duet our videos and say mean, nasty things that were just not true,” he said. “In the beginning, it made us second-guess the path we were going down.”

It hasn’t stopped since they started the account, in October of 2018—and they’ve since gathered more than 14 million followers. But they have gotten better at managing it, Nick said. “Sienna is luckily very intelligent and knows that this is not OK. I made sure to sit down with her, emphasizing how special she is and that people may not see that right away.”

Nick believes TikTok does a good job of handling harassment, and giving creators the tools to handle it themselves. “If there is consistent harassment from a specific account, I block and delete their hateful comments,” he said. “For the negative comments in general, I tend to just ignore them. I’d rather not give those people the satisfaction of being noticed.”

TikTok does allow users to opt out of Duets. But these are the features that foster that slingshot fame; opting out of them means opting out of your chance at going viral or just growing your audience.

Fatima and Munera Fahiye, who are sisters and TikTok creators with around 3 million followers each, told me that they also find the platform to be responsive when they need support. “There were multiple accounts on TikTok impersonating me on the app, and TikTok helped me by verifying my account to let people know that my account is the real one,” Munera said.

Whatever harassment they do receive—which often means racist comments—they say is outweighed by the support of fans. “I have been on TikTok for a year now, and I have not experienced any harassment, but after gaining some followers I have seen some mean comments about my hijab every now and then, but I try to not give it any attention, because the love and support that I am getting from my fans is more than the little hate, so it does not matter,” Fatima said.

The harassment that happens on TikTok doesn’t stay there, however. On Reddit, whole communities are devoted to catching women and girls on social media in the middle of wardrobe slips, where you can see down their shirts, up their skirts, or anytime they shift and move and reveal a glimpse of more skin. Standalone websites are made for this purpose, too, and for doxxing and harassing women who might have a TikTok in addition to an OnlyFans or other separate adult platform.

In 2020, a server on the gaming chat platform Discord took requests for TikTok creators to be made into deepfakes—AI-generated fake porn. Although child pornography is against Discord’s terms of use, even in the form of deepfakes, one of the most requested targets was only 17. A request for another deepfake noted, “by the way she turns 18 in 4 days.”

Creators also find their content, clothed as in the originals or deepfaked, reposted to porn sites. In concert, the people on each of these platforms work together to create an overwhelming environment of virtual assault for many young women.

Until TikTok, Ava had never really been into social media, she told me on a Zoom call in her parents’ house. She was taking a break from high school distance learning; this was her senior year, spent over video chats because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I always told myself I’d never make a TikTok because my friends all had it and I was like, that’s so cringe,” she said. “Like, I’ll never start that. But they were like, ‘Come on make one,’ so I did.”

She said she made her first account when she was 15, and posted the usual stuff: trend dances, makeup videos. Within a few days, her audience went from the friends who talked her into joining to 150,000 followers—a leap in popularity that she still doesn’t entirely understand. The sudden attention startled her; she deactivated the account.

She accidentally reactivated the account later, and at this point, having gotten over the initial shock of attention, decided to give it another try.

A rock smashed through her mom’s car window with a threatening note tied to it: I want to take you and impregnate you.

Once Ava started posting new videos, the hateful comments started. “I thought that was like the worst it could get,” she said. “It was like, body shaming and hate—the body shaming especially never bothered me, and the normal hate comments were just like, whatever.” A few users created accounts to post rape threats about her, and this did disturb her, but she took it as par for the course as a young woman online.

That is, until one of her followers started stalking her and her best friend, Gabriel. That follower messaged Gabriel, mentioning her home address and demanding to know who she was dating. “So, we’re both kind of like laughing like this guy’s obviously just some weird fan,” she recalled.

I have something planned for Ava. You’ll see in the next three months. I’m planning something big, Ava says he told Gabriel. He hacked her phone three months later, on Gabriel’s 18th birthday. After that, the man texted Ava every day.

“It was stuff about how he wants to rape me, how he’s going to get me, how I can easily stop this—he was texting my dad saying, She’s not allowed to hang out with her friends, if she goes out I’ll know. Saying he’s watching over us and stuff like that.” Every time Ava thought the situation was as bad as it could get—that this man she’d never met was going as far as he could go—he went further.

Then a rock smashed through her mom’s car window with a threatening note tied to it: I want to take you and impregnate you.

Cyberbullying has proven long-lasting effects on teens and young adults. As Hinduja noted, studies show that it’s tied to low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, family problems, academic difficulties, delinquency, school violence, and suicidal thoughts and attempts.

“So at this point I was like, ‘OK, this is getting a little serious.’”

“Most important to me is how negative experiences online unnecessarily compromise the healthy flourishing of our youth at school,” he said. According to his and his co-director Justin Patchin’s research at the Cyberbullying Research Center, over 60 percent of students who experienced cyberbullying reported that it “deeply affected” their ability to learn and feel safe while at school, and 10 percent of students surveyed said they’ve skipped school at least once this past year because of it.

“That cannot be happening,” Hinduja said.

“In general, I hope people will remember that everyone is a human being just like them. We are all capable of feeling hurt and disappointment, and just because there are numbers and a platform attached to our lives doesn’t mean we are impervious to hurtful words or harassing comments,” Nick said. “TikTok is a space where everyone should feel safe to express their creativity, and in order to do that we need to be kind to others.”

Maxwell Mitcheson, Ava’s agent and the head of talent at TalentX Entertainment, told me that he’s seen harassment take a direct toll on young people. “A lot of creators are growing up in front of millions of people, and that involves making mistakes and learning and growing from them,” he said. “The hateful rhetoric definitely weighs on them; some don’t even look at their comments section anymore just to try and stay positive.”

“It’s the inability to make mistakes, being attacked for being authentically yourself, and the sudden lack of anonymity,” Mitcheson said.

Ava’s experience was on the extreme side, he explained, but creators at his agency have had instances of hacking and stalking, or fans randomly showing up at creators’ homes. “We’ve had to involve security and PIs before, but Ava’s was a situation that could have ended in tragedy if it weren’t for the Toronto police intervening.”

After the window-breaking threat, Ava said the police told her that she couldn’t stay at home. She went to stay at a friend’s house, but he still reached her there, she said. “He just kept going saying like, look at what you’ve done, this is all your fault,” she said. He sent her a private message that would delete after it was opened, so she recorded it using a friend’s phone:

I need you to accept the fact that I’m extorting you right now, you need to accept that this isn’t going to end no one’s gonna catch me, the police haven’t ever caught me when I did this before, accept it, give me what I want, I want you to meet up at this park right behind your house I want to do this this this this to you

if you don’t I will kill your parents in front of you in your living room and take you.

“So at this point I was like, ‘OK, this is getting a little serious,’” she told me.

She said she sent the message to the police, who told her whole family to stay somewhere else, hours away. They did, for two weeks. He kept texting her: are you going to be there Saturday you’re making the wrong decision you better answer me.

Eventually, Ava recalled, he was caught. He left the VPN he was using to mask his location off for a half a second, according to her—just long enough, she remembers the police telling her, for the investigators to capture his location data and pinpoint where he was texting her from.

Ava said that the police told her that when he was caught, they found six separate phones and a bunch of SIM cards in his possession—full of pictures and videos of Ava that he’d taken from her accounts. According to the Toronto area detective Ava and her family worked with, the case is still in the courts.

Talking to me now, over Zoom, in between classes and facing midterms, Ava seems fine. She’s able to recount this story in delicate detail, without flinching. She understands the gravity of what happened to her, and how it upended her life. Her family decided to move away, “to the middle of nowhere, pretty much,” she said.

But she is different now. She stopped posting to her TikTok to focus on her friendships and family, though she still posts sporadically on Instagram. She would like to be more active on social media, but she’s not pushing herself. She has anxiety that she describes as “really bad.”

“It’s really affected me, like, you know, just like not being able to live in your own home, and like, even when you are at home, not being safe… It’s really hard, especially when I was only 16 when this happened,” she said. “It is hard, and knowing that my parents were always stressed out and not being able to go outside and walk without feeling kind of scared…”

Before she stopped posting new TikTok videos, she tried to open up on the platform in videos about her mental health and her experiences. But people weren’t receptive to it.

“Especially when they’re like, Oh, a TikTok girl that all the simps love, or What are you complaining about, all these boys love you, kind of thing,” she told me. “I’ve been trying to go to therapy and trying to get over it, but when that kind of thing happens you’re not really the same afterwards. You have a different outlook on social media. You’re kind of scared of if it’s going to happen again. You don’t think those people exist until it happens to you, and then you’re like, wow, this is crazy.”

Online harassment has a silencing effect on people of all ages and genders, but women have it especially bad—and young women are pushed offline, out of the center of conversations and control of their own narrative, at earlier and earlier ages. As adolescents, harassment online makes them do worse in school, seek riskier behaviors, and contemplate or even attempt and follow through on self-harm and suicide. As grown women, this looks like anxiety, a lack of self-confidence, not sleeping, and stepping out of the online conversation altogether to protect their own mental health, and, in severe cases, the safety of themselves and their loved ones. When harassment is allowed to carry on, and women are shamed for seeking help, the damage digs deeper—and we lose those voices.

I asked Ava what she wishes more people understood—about her, about what it’s like to have a big social media following, about how it feels to have millions of eyes on you at such a young age. “I just wish they knew that just because you have followers, doesn’t mean you have this perfect life,” she said. “Just because boys love you, that doesn’t complete your life. When these kinds of things happen, you should be able to be open about it.”

Follow Samantha Cole on Twitter.

Why This Teen Walked Away From Millions of TikTok Followers syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[cashmierathoughts]

Riding With Casey - Indy Stars Edition

“If you run yellow lights, you have raw sex!!”. Coming to the stage, please welcome CASEY THE ICON! Do I have your attention? Good, because I need it for about five minutes; assuming you read at a normal pace. Excuse the shade, I don’t mean any harm. 

I had the pleasure of meeting up with the oh so talented Casey Ross to discuss his show. Perhaps you’ve heard of it, ‘Riding With Casey’? This impromptu show features friends of Casey’s who hop in his ‘06 Sebring to discuss various topics led by the Icon himself. The show got its start when Casey and his friends were riding around, smoking, and they decided it would be funny to record themselves talking about everyday affairs. Prior to this bright idea, Casey had previously been a success on Vine, getting hundreds and thousands of re-vines and being recognized by people in the city for his videos as well as having a show called ‘The Funny Casey Show’ in college.

 My goal was to get to the heart of the show; I really wanted to dig deep at the core of ‘Riding With Casey’. How did it get it’s start? How does he choose who comes on the show? Are topics pre-planned? Is there anything he won’t touch as far as discussion goes? Do’s and don’ts in the whip. What’s up!?

“I was with my friends smoking one day and I was like ‘bro, lets make some videos and record ourselves’. This was a long time ago. My ex motivated me to do SOMETHING. She would say, ‘Just do it, you’re wasting time just sitting around.’ My ex is a big reason why I pushed my show. So I did it.”

Behind every man, is a strong woman.. but I digress.

I must admit, I was watching a clip of ‘Riding With Casey’ and your guest mentioned he would rape KeKe Palmer. Rape is a serious thing, that’s not up for debate. So I got to thinking, ‘What won’t this nigga talk about? Is there no topic that remains untouched?’ So tell me, is there anything that you just absolutely will not talk about?

“We will talk about everything. I want riding with casey to be the realest show you’ve ever seen. If people wanna say “fuck the bee-hive” they can say that. If they want to say they don’t want no faggot ass son, they can say that. I want people to feel like they can say whatever they want to say. This is what will bring the attention. Most questions I look up on the internet in compilation with things I thought of myself. As time went on, people brought topics to me. I have a game called views. I ask them questions about their views on current events. Politics, the grammy’s. I just like to get the full person. [This is] All improv. I tell them that this is an interview but I don’t want you to be tense as if this is an interview. It’s just niggas in a car talking. But some people, I do prep and do research” 

‘Riding With Casey’ is an inclusive, no holds barred show. Discussions range from: sports, sex, music, everyday life, celebrity drama, current events, etc. as well as a sub-show called Views. On this segment of the show, Casey throws out random topics to get a holistic feel of the person he’s interviewing. When I asked Casey what was his favorite topic discussed, I must admit, I was a little shocked by his answer. One of the most historically controversial topics in the black community, outside of the OJ verdict is the question of sexuality. Mainly that of the black man. Casey reported that his favorite topic on his show to date was the discussion on whether or not his interviewees would rather have a ‘hoe daughter’ or a ‘gay son’. When asked why, this is what he had to say,

“Having a gay sun or a hoe daughter really brings out people’s bias’. I’d rather have a hoe daughter though, with a gay son, I'd feel like I did something wrong.”

Via Casey, he’d rather have a ‘hoe daughter’ because if he were to have a gay son, he would feel the burden of his sons’ decision. As if his daughter being a hoe would have nothing to do with her upbringing..? Hmm. I do agree with Casey about one thing; this subject does bring out the bias’ we carry around with us when it comes to gender roles and what is and is not acceptable in our society. Sure, being a hoe is taboo to some, but being a gay black man is still deemed as debauched in the black culture. 

Many people want to know how they can get on the show - including myself. I mean, I literally went as far as interviewing the interviewer just to get a sneak peak of what being on ‘Riding With Casey’ is like. In case you’re still waiting on that invite, from my perspective, it is worth the wait! But the process is still a little unsystematic if you ask me. 

“A lot of people ask, ‘How can I get on the show’, ‘Why haven't I been on the show’. I don’t really have a list of people that are getting on the show. There are certain people that I know I have to get. It depends on how serious they are about getting on the show.” 

“This season I have to show more of myself too. I’m not just some nigga asking questions.” 

Switching gears, everyone is inspired by something or someone that preceded them. In Casey’s circumstance, it was comedian/actor Martin Lawrence. In high school, Casey watched every episode of Martin and now knows every word. According to Casey, 

“...Martin is my biggest inspiration because of his show. I love the spotlight. In high school, I started to watch Martin every day after school. I know every episode word for word. His relationship with Gina – he was fun with her. He was on TV, he had the girl and had his friends. [Even though we don’t care about relationships in 2017]” 

Most comedians find joy in making light of current events, whether they’re “hot topics”, controversial propositions, race issues, politics, etc. For them, it’s an avenue to educate their audience on what’s going on it the world. It prompts them to formulate an opinion about societal issues all while laughing their asses off. I can’t think of a better way to stay woke. Casey and I talked about what it is about comedy that he finds joy in and it really boils down to him wanting to make other people happy.

“People have literally walked up to me and told me that they watched my vines over and over just to laugh because they were having a bad day.. It’s shit like that. People see the talent and it inspires them”.

While on the topic of other comedians, I wanted to get Casey’s opinion on black comedians, specifically black males, who dress up as women as part of their “act”. A few years ago, comedian Dave Chappelle sat down with Oprah to talk about why he felt the industry was flawed and how they – the industry – always push the “cross dressing” agenda on black comedians. In short, Dave would argue that the conspiracy to emasculate the black man and reduce his/their [the black men] creative freedom within the industry is one of the reasons he left that 50 million dollars on the table and moved to Africa. When asked about his thoughts on dressing up as a woman for shits and giggles, Casey said that growing up watching ‘Martin’, he didn’t see it as a problem. He would mimic scenes featuring Sheneneh [Ref: Martin] and Wanda [Ref: Jamie Foxx] to make people laugh. But my question to him was, would you do it now? Plenty of comedians and actors have done it, and still do it. i.e Tyler Perry, Eddie Murphy, Martin, the Waynes’ brothers, etc. Do you find it necessary to dress up as a woman as part of your act for laughs? Casey looked me in the eye, leaned back in his water stained scrap metal Starbuck seat and said,

“Hell na. When it comes to being on camera, I don't think I could take it that far. Now, I just feel like there’s something behind it now because of what Dave said and the Hollywood world.”

Despite the inspiration Casey receives from legendary comedians that paved the way before him, Casey channels a lot of his influence from his estranged father. It’s funny how the people who we have less contact with shape us. I always like to remind myself that the broken are the more evolved. I also find this to be true for Casey. When I asked him who was the most influential person in his life, he responded, 

“As crazy as it sounds, my dad. I don’t have a good relationship – because I don’t want to be shit like him and it pushes me to be better. Sometimes I see myself in him and I know that I have to change that shit. Now, I turn that hurt into motivation and it makes me want to grind hard. When I get rich, I know he’s gonna want to come back around and I’m going to embrace him. Something gotta make them love me. Just like women.”

Casey admitted to me that he will know when he has truly made it because he will then be genuinely happy in life. Know yourself, then grow yourself. With the help, love, and support of family and friends, doors will open, windows will be left cracked, and ceilings will be no more.  

Casey has a promising future ahead of him. My third eye senses this. Not only is he a comedian and producer of his very own show, but he is also a fashion designer, cartoonist, and creative director of three different clothing lines. [Shout out: Trust God, So Sick, Cheatah, 7House, and Silent Hustle]. Be that as it may, I would advise that he stays positive and learns to neglect the bullshit on his way to the top. It’s easy to get sidetracked by the things going on around us, but we have to know our focus and maintain just that. I had a blast working with this young man and I advise you to check out his show! 

Final thoughts from the Icon:

“Believe in yourself and chase your dreams and do what you wanna do in life and it’s yours. Its not anybody elses, not your moms, your dads, or your friends ‘cause when they die, its up to you. And stop being nice to these bitches. The good guy always loses.”

If you would like to get in contact with Casey about his show, follow him on Twitter @CaseytheIcon or on Snapchat @itsfunnycasey or E-mail him at CaseyTheIcon@icloud.com 

[bizmediaweb]

Mobile Video Tools That Make It Easier To Confront The Camera – 1 Minute Moment #82

Mobile Video Tools That Make It Easier To Confront The Camera

Does getting in front of the camera terrify you?

We make excuses to avoid doing it. Video content is complicated right? You need equipment, you need to be comfortable in front of the camera, you need to know what you’re doing.

But the reality is, we’re scared and we’re allowing that fear to hold us back.

Video isn’t hard. The mobile phone in our pocket is a powerful video camera and editor. People today are making quality video on their phone that would have taken days if not weeks to make on the equipment I used in college.

All you need is a smartphone and the confidence to start creating. And that’s what this post is all about. We’ll look at 3 tools that will slowly help you smother your fears.

So whip out your phone, free up a bit of space so you can download new apps and I’ll show you some tools you can use to help you feel more comfortable in front of camera.

3 Tools To Help You Confront Your Fear Of The Camera

1 Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook Stories

The easiest way to get comfortable with short video is to use the function within story tools. Each video you add to your story is a ‘shot’ in a longer story.

When I started doing Live video I was terrified, there was something about that live, un-editable me that was scary. I used Snapchat to get comfortable. I figured if I could shoot a 10-second video of myself, eventually I’d feel brave enough to hit the ‘Live’ button on Facebook. It worked.

So give it a go, tell Snapchat what you’ve got planned for the day or about something you watched on TV last night. Don’t worry about what you look like or sound like, it will be gone in 24 hours and if you can conquer Snapchat you’ll be able to conquer all online video.

Story tools like Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook stories are also a place to practice visual storytelling. Think of it like a blog post. What is the one thing you want people to learn from you? Look for visual ways of teaching that thing.

Here are some stories I made when I was experimenting with Snapchat:

Use Snapchat and other Story tools to practice video structure

2. VineCamera iOS and Android

Do you remember Vine? I was mad for it, a cool little social network where you could share six-second, multi-shot video clips.

The cool thing about Vine was its interface. You just hold your finger on the screen for as long as you want to record and remove it when you are done. Similar to how Snapchat and Instagram stories work today.

Vine was bought by Twitter and then closed down in 2016. You can still view some of the fun videos that were shared on Vine for inspiration.

Although Vine the social network has gone the tool survives. You can use VineCamera to create short videos and easily share them to Twitter. This is a great way to practice putting shots together to tell a story, it also forces you to keep it concise. Videos can still only be a maximum of 6 seconds long.

3. Flipagram

If you’re not quite brave enough for video yet start with photographs. Flipagram is a tool that lets you create video from a selection of photographs.

Just because you are using photos it doesn’t mean you should forget storytelling. Try telling a day in the life or the chronology of an event you attend.

Here’s one I made at a Sage Business Expert meetup back in 2015:

Yesterday Sage brought Small Business Experts from Ireland and the UK to Newcastle. It was great to meet so many great business owners. It was even nicer to travel with @eamonnobrien @charliemoos & @frederiquemurphy who made excellent travel companions. #sagebizmeetup #smallbusiness #sme #smallbusinessowner #newcastle #sage

A post shared by Amanda & Lorna (@weteachsocial) on Nov 26, 2015 at 11:46am PST

4. Live

Are you feeling brave now? Then hit the Live button on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube and talk to your audience. After you’ve done it once you’ll want to do it again (probably).

The key to good video content

The key to good video content is the same as any content you create online. Forget about the tech and think about what value you can share with your audience? What can you give them that will help them learn or better themselves? If you know what you can teach them the video will make itself.

Your Turn

All of these tools are easy to use, so you’ve no excuse pick them up and shot yourself a video, it could be the beginning of something.

  Are you tired of people telling you that you should be doing video online? You've seen the stats, video works but how can you create it quickly and cheaply? Come to my Go Do Video Workshop in London: Learn how to boost your online visibility with video content

  Mobile Video Tools That Make It Easier To Confront The Camera

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