#youtubes algorithm is the only one i like because it occasionally gives me interesting if completely random vidoes lol

[sojourner-between-worlds]

If the internet/yt existed in the L&Co universe, George would absolutely have a side-hobby yt channel where he shares all of his research, inspired entirely by the channel I stumbled on with a dude who finds gravestones and does research on the person/story behind it, like Warren Gibbs whose epitaph accuses his wife of murder

[irritatednick]

Trying to Get YouTube Shorts to Radicalize Me to the Right

My childhood friend fell into the Manosphere a couple years ago and for a few months he was sending me one conservative after another. YouTube Shorts - of all things - seemed to be radicalizing him. He sent me stuff about exercise and crafting and outdoor stuff but also anti-woke comedy sketches and motivational speeches and liberal takedowns... it was a mess. It started with Jordan Peterson and JP Sears and ended with Charlie Kirk and Dinesh D'Souza. So I was very interested when I happened upon YouTuber Benaminute's latest video where he did an experiment to see how long it would take for a brand-new user watching YouTube shorts to get a right-wing political video. His results were interesting but it wasn't quite the experiment I was hoping for. He covered up his webcam and muted his mic and watched every video through to the end, so his recommends were not influenced by his attention. But I wanted to know which videos when watched more would steer me into right propaganda, like an *actual* pipeline from one genre to another. So I did my own experiment. And it wasn't gonna be easy - because I used my YouTube account with my subscriptions and watch history as-is. Could I nudge the algorithm based solely on watch time and scrolling to give me right-leaning content?

To start with, even though I am subbed to some left-leaning political channels (e.g. Majority Report), my Shorts feed really didn't have any political content at all. Instead it was mostly Japanese culture (e.g. Matcha Samurai), linguistics (Etymology Nerd), art, electronic music, cooking, history (e.g. The Townsends), sketch comedy (e.g. Smosh), and science videos (e.g. Nile Red). My initial plan of attack was to home in on the few videos in my feed that had to do with outdoor survival tips, manual crafts like woodworking, and archery. I endeavored to be as conservative minded as possible (limited of course to my own preconceived notions of what makes a conservative). Therefore this experiment also would help determine whether I actually knew anything about what conservatives actually value and believe - after all, if I were wrong about what they watch, I don't think I'd ever get to the stream of conservative pundits. Thus, my experiment began.

Slowly (very slowly) my feed was taken up by outdoor survival and sports videos. The sports were mostly off-road biking, skiing, free climbing, wind suit jumping. Not televised team sports like football. A lot of Red Bull-sponsored content. It was like that for a long time until I got my first gun video. It was a guy firing successively more powerful guns at a Stretch Armstrong to see if he could penetrate it. At last, my first break. Soon after I got recommended more gun content. So much gun content. Video after video of gun nerds showing off a gun and comparing guns' performance. I got Call of Duty gaming videos and watched them. I hoped to include the gamer bro space. I got military weapons demonstrations and some military history and veteran interview videos. I watched a few videos from an Airsoft channel. At some point nearly my whole feed was gun and military related. Still nothing expressly political, except for one short about gun rights. I hoped that would take me to the right-wing political sphere, but it was a dead end. I occasionally got a gun dude wearing some provocative clothing - one guy was wearing camo body armor with an American flag and a Don't Tread On Me flag patch, and another dude had a t-shirt reading "Gun control: buying 1 when you really want 2." But it didn't move the needle.

One other odd genre of content that I kept indulging on my feed was Neil deGrasse Tyson. I was hoping that since he had been on Joe Rogan and that physics YouTubers in general can get into anti-woke territory that it would help me get to conservative and conspiratorial content from that angle. I got only one video from a self-described millionaire giving advice to his younger self. Sadly that did not yield any financial bro content. I got a short from a motivational speaker (Vinh Giang) giving a talk about how to be a better public speaker, and watched a few more from him. Surely, I thought, I'm getting close. It was around this time that I finally got any videos on exercise! I knew that was going to be vital. It was also around this time that I got basketball and baseball clips and any content about cars. It took that long. Then I got my first nutrition shorts. All this led me to Mike Israetel, Ph.D. and his channel (and fitness company) Renaissance Periodization. I've seen Israetel before, mostly I think from clips talking to YouTuber and family physician Dr. Mike Varshavsky. Israetel has a doctorate in sport physiology and has a matter of fact and authoritative way of speaking about exercise and nutrition. Israetel's shorts led me to his appearances on Chris Williamson's podcast Modern Wisdom, which I was recently warned is basically the Joe Rogan Experience in the UK. In fact, one short came my way featuring a British comedian roasting Williamson for his frequent far right guests and asking him to guess the author of 3 quotes that all turned out to be Hitler.

I think it was around this time that I got my first conservative political clip - it was from the ValueTainment podcast, and this guy was showing clips from the 1979 presidential debate in order to frame Ronald Reagan in a positive light. But there was no commentary so I didn't feel that I had succeeded in my mission quite yet. I had started getting Neil Tyson clips on Joe Rogan and finally saw and heard Rogan, but they weren't posted by JRE's channel. I also got clips from physicist Brian Cox with that familiar JRE curtain in the background. Then some of bro podcaster Theo Von. "Edgy" stand-up comedians Anthony Jesselnik and Bill Burr and Dave Chappelle appeared, and I sat through all of them. And Rick & Morty clips appeared? Other than some Family Guy it was the only animated content to come up in my feed. But I knew that was edgy and I suffered through Justin Roiland to watch all of them. I got my first and only video discussing crypto (it was warning about not paying taxes on crypto income). Twitcher and clinical psychiatrist Dr. Alok Kanojia finally appeared in my feed (I have legit watched him and I think he's insightful about some things but his content is geared toward gamer bros so I take it with a grain of salt), and I absolutely knew I had to watch him because of how he discusses gamer culture and male loneliness and psychology.

The last piece of the puzzle I think is when I watched a Daily Show clip. I had been reluctant to see the very few Daily Show clips on my feed because I feared it would send me to left-leaning content, but when I was recommended a clip of an interview with Neil Tyson commenting on Donald Trump... I had to include it. Especially since they tagged Trump in the video. Very soon after, I got my first Trump clip at long last, from the ValueTainment podcast. They played a clip of Trump owning the media while interviewing Trump himself. I had truly gotten right-wing political content. But soon after that I got a definitive conclusion to my experiment - clips from the one, the only Dave Rubin, from his own channel. At long last, I got an official clip from an alt-right pundit - gay traitor and bootlicker Dave Rubin of The Daily Wire.

My feed still doesn't have a robust variety of anti-woke grifters, and I wonder if I kept going if I would get that. But my main mission is over. The most peculiar observation I have is what content immediately led to getting right-wing content. I don't know if I took the shortest route from my starting position; I likely did not. And I don't know if the algorithm took into account all those other videos on outdoor survival, guns, military history, and sports. But that content was not what led me to (explicitly) conservative propaganda. It was motivational and optimization content, self-improvement, exercise and nutrition, mental wellness, and bro podcasts that immediately preceded it.

[blackradandmad]

why blippi is rotting yr children's brains

preface: i literally expect no one to read this. it is an essay length, strong opinion piece critiquing a niche youtube-based children's show that i don't expect most of y'all to even have knowledge of lol. but like, i promise that even if you know nothing about what i'm talking about, in my incredibly, super humble opinion, it's a good piece of writing and interesting nonetheless. anyway if you read this whole thing for some reason yr really hot and we should kiss.

i thoroughly vet everything my child watches before he watches it, episode by episode. and we rarely watch youtube for entertainment; we usually just look up educational videos when he has a question about something and wants more detail than i can provide him. and that's mainly because children's content on youtube is so fucking troubling and distressing. i don't judge parents who give their children a tablet at a restaurant at all bc i've been there and sometimes it's easier on everyone to just put on a video and avoid a giant scene, but i do judge parents who just leave their children alone with youtube kids on autoplay.

take stevin john, a literal millionaire who got famous from dressing up as a silly character called blippi and going on tours of places like aquariums, zoos, construction sites, etc and posting it on youtube. this has branched into a whole empire of blippi videos, hulu shows and specials, live shows and tours (that he outsources to another character actor), merchandise and so on. this 30-something year old man cites his main influence as being mr. rogers, but i question if he's ever even seen an episode of that program.

mr. rogers had no background in early childhood development or media production, but he revolutionized the world of children's media, because he respected his audience and didn't shy away from real world situations, all while creating a show with an enormous heart. mr. rogers begins his episodes by inviting the viewer in, literally changing his attire to be more comfortable, and talking about/doing things he genuinely cares about. whereas mr. rogers calmly and maturely addresses the viewer, blippi puts on a high pitched, contrived voice, interjecting every other sentence with a forced exclamation such as, "teehee! we're having so much fun!"

i don't find it a coincidence that john (blippi) is a veteran, either. his videos are completely devoid of the absurd, abstract, childlike thinking that makes children's media fun, creative, and entertaining. his thinking and process is methodical, devoid of emotion, and very superficial. this line of thinking clearly shows the kind of creative sterilization and emphasis on sameness and conformity instilled in the military. blippi simply observes things and interacts with them in a stale, matter-of-fact way. "this ball is purple! this ball is pink! anyway... what's over there? teehee! a car! vroom, vroom!" objects are colors, toy cars don't do anything but drive, curiosity is simply not encouraged.

he uses the "it's educational!" excuse to hide the fact that his show lacks everything that makes media a valuable resource for children to consume in the first place. further than identifying colors, numbers, and the occasional letter or shape, there is just this total lack of children's need for social and emotional development. when mr. rogers breaks the fourth wall to address the viewer and let them know they're special, it feels authentic and natural, because we've spent the last half hour building whole worlds with diverse characters and unique stories in a pretend neighborhood, learning about and enjoying different musical instruments, being exposed to and making friends with (even if parasocially, it is still a real bond to children when done properly) children who are similar to us in character regardless of physical or environmental differences, feeding the fish, making art together, and so on. when blippi tells the viewer, "you are very special, and i enjoy spending time with you!" it falls completely flat and feels unearned, because the last half hour was spent running around a soft play center pointing at bright, colorful objects, visiting interesting locations like farms or fruit production factories while failing to acknowledge the humanity of the humans actually working there (everything is machine or product focused; the human workers are simply an extension of the machine), learning "fun facts" about elephants that just list attributes of elephants, not taking the opportunity to inform the viewers of elephants' intelligence, or diet, or matriarchal society. it is a loud, sensory overwhelming display of a man so disconnected from the social and emotional needs and desires of children that he assumes they're stupid, easily entertained idiots who only need some silly dances and fast-moving cartoon graphics to give their attention (meaning time and desire to purchase products meaning $$$). john clearly views his audience as a means to gaming the algorithm and ultimately a paycheck by the hollow way he addresses them.

the show is so narcissistic, so focused on all the fun blippi is supposedly having, but he lacks any of the character traits that make individual children's show hosts memorable, so much so that he was able to have someone else who doesn't even vaguely resemble him dress as blippi and impersonate him and host the show or appear at live shows, and it went unnoticed by most of his toddler and child audience. the show is so formulaic and the character of blippi is so unmemorable that instead of taking the blue's clues route of developing a story of the host leaving for college and his brother now stepping in, or making some sort of believable excuse for the change in actors, they can simply swap him out with some random guy and not acknowledge it at all. although a comedy show for older children, the amanda show in no way could or would try to replicate the show with the same name but swapping out amanda bynes with a random teenage girl who is clearly not amanda bynes. it's weird and nonsensical and shows that his character is so much of a farce put on for a paycheck that not even his dedicated audience is affected or even cares when he is replaced by a random, unknown person.

this is completely garbage content made by an opportunist with no experience with children who saw his nephew watching children's youtube content, took it at complete surface level and still hasn't realized that while children's content only looks and feels so easy, entertaining, and enriching because it is so hard to do well. even with outsourcing his music, that aspect of the show still sucks. famous and successful children's musician, raffi, is known for his song describing the life of a little white whale, called "baby beluga." it opens with a calm strumming of his guitar, followed by the lyrics, "baby beluga in the deep blue sea/swim so wild and you swim so free/heaven above/sea below/and a little white whale on the go." is it silly and kind of pointless? yes, but the point is that he is captivating children and showing them the fun of listening to music, dancing, singing, and appreciating art. the "excavator song" featured in an episode of blippi about construction vehicles opens with what sounds like a default garageband loop and the flatly sung lyrics, "i'm an excavator/i'm an excavator/hey dirt, see you later/i'm an excavator." i don't feel i have to meticulously analyze the aforementioned lyrics; the stark contrast should speak for itself.

i have a million more criticisms about both blippi specifically and youtube children's content as a whole, but this is already so long and i doubt many people will get this far anyway. it's an issue i was completely apathetic towards until i had my own child and had to wean him off these kinds of junk food shows because i realized the fast-paced visuals and bright colors and repetitive songs/lyrics were putting him in this spaced-out, fugue state, and he thought he could demand this show or that show whenever he wanted. the moment he started regularly yelling things like, "watch! cars!" or "no! click it!" i knew i had to be a lot more invested in the things he watched even if just for entertainment or as a soothing message. i showed him an episode of mr. rogers yesterday and feared it would be too slow to hold his attention, but he was mesmerized, greeting and interacting with mr. rogers verbally, asking me, "what's that?" to different objects on the screen. since purging this low-brow children's entertainment, he has had a noticeable increase in attention span and concentration, can focus on a task for longer amounts of times, is more likely to "read"/look through books without me initiating it, and doesn't throw a fit when the tv/my laptop is off.

i just know that for me, growing up with so much unsupervised internet access definitely led me to real-world pain and consequences, and it seems like now children are born with an iphone as an extension of their arm. if my child is going to be consuming videos, i'm definitely supervising every second and am going to be highly critical of the videos and the credentials (or lack thereof) of the creators and team behind it. but i also know, from pure observation admittedly, that parents letting youtube kids autoplay parent their children for hours at a time is not an uncommon occurrence. and it worries me that a generation of children are being raised on videos that rely on being as loud and bright and superficially enjoyable as possible. what's the use of a child knowing their colors and alphabet if they don't know how to treat people with kindness and empathy and respect? there is something wrong for a children's show host to plug the spelling of his name at the end of his videos ("well, that's the end of this video. but if you wanna watch more of my videos, just type in my name! can you spell my name with me? b-l-i-p-p-i!") after essentially rotting his audiences' brains for a half hour. there's something so insidious about the prioritization of naming different parts of construction vehicles over honest depictions of and conversations about dealing with feelings, or why someone with autism may act differently than you, or what to do when you feel lonely, or ways to make art and express yrself creatively. also, not to mention the blatant police propaganda and outright worship is seriously jarring; as a black mother to a visibly non-white child, i cannot sit there and watch blippi show kids how to be a bootlicker for the shittiest profession on earth, but that could be a whole essay in and of itself.

anyway, thanks for reading, if yr looking for quality children's content, i recommend, in no specific order: mr. rogers, sesame street, the electric company, molly of denali, daniel tiger, bluey!, blue's clues, the odd squad, word party, trash truck, puffin rock, uhh... that's definitely not an extensive list but that's just off the dome!!! ok bye y'all <333

[floatingcatacombs]

annual music post.

12 Days of Aniblogging 2022, Day 6

I am sick.

No, it’s not covid. My immune system and I have been doing a remarkably good job of dodging covid, all things considered. Nor is it any of the other 8 respiratory infections going around this winter. It’s something in my gut, and I’ve been dealing with it for quite some time now.

Back in October of last year, my acid reflux meds stopped working, leaving me with soreness and the lingering sensation of something in the back of my throat. My gastroenterologist wasn’t able to help and by January I was dealing with the new terrible symptoms of generalized abdominal pain and constant burping.

After months of delays due to the medical system collapsing from covid, I finally got some important tests done in May. They confirmed that the problems were real and esophageal in nature, but ultimately did not help one bit with trying to figure out how to treat them.

As this year has gone on, things have gotten slowly worse. The stomach pain has gradually intensified, as has the belching. More and more foods started giving me indigestion until finally it’s just every meal, no matter what. Some grosser symptoms which I don’t want to write out crept up on me. It’s no good, and while I’ve gotten my shit together and am much better at working with doctors, I’m no closer to being well.

If I hadn’t lucked out in being able to work from home, I would definitely be out of job and money by now. How am I supposed to be professional when I belch for hours after every meal? Or when I need to lie down for hours a day in pain? It’s as embarrassing as it is life-ruining.

_

When you’re in hell, and want to listen to music, there are two different routes you can go down:

Seek out the most downcast, most abrasive stuff you can handle and wallow in it.

Immerse yourself in fluffy, happy, relaxing, or otherwise escapist songs.

I’m really good at the former! If my previous music writeups and Spotify years-in-review are any indication, my taste leans strongly towards the negative emotions. But there’s only so much despair you can take, and sometimes you need a change of pace. So this year, I’ll be writing about the musical niche I carved out: Japanese musicians with English-language releases, most of which are a significant tonal shift from my usual.

Flipper’s Guitar

This is Keigo Oyamada’s band from before his work as Shibuya-kei legend Cornelius, and I feel like a lot of people gloss over them for that exact reason. But Flipper’s Guitar is a real delight throughout their quick 3-album run. Their first album is sung entirely in English, owing to its inspirations in 60’s American music and 80’s British jangle pop. It’s straightforward and cheerful stuff executed perfectly, and the second album is a solid rerun of these ideas but with more of it sung in Japanese. It’s their final album which is the most interesting, as it’s an eclectic mix with more of a psychedelic dance-pop sound that seems to have directly led to the development of Shibuya-kei. There’s even a shoegaze song for good measure! This album isn’t on streaming services, probably because of its extensive sampling, so the easiest way to listen to it was a Youtube upload by now-terminated channel Asian Shoegaze. The thing is, they fucked up and accidentally uploaded the tracks in alphabetical order. After listening through both this and the original track listing, I’m actually of the opinion that the alphabetical version flows better. Life is funny like that.

Poison Girl Friend

You know how the Spotify algorithm will occasionally propel an obscure musician into millions of streams? That’s how most people discovered Poison Girl Friend this year, similar to how Youtube turned Plastic Love into a decades-late international hit a few years back. But I, being a weirdo, knew about Poison Girl Friend years ago, from her being inspired by pervert pop artist Momus (her stage name is a reference to the second Momus album!). Her debut album, all self-produced, has a spacey trip-hop sound to it, right on the dial for 1992. The breathy vocals and relaxed tempos lead to an excellent atmosphere, with THOSE WERE THE DAYS getting stuck in my head the most.

In what should be a success story, Poison Girl Friend successfully caught the attention of Momus, who went on to produce her second album. The thing is, compared to her own work, his production here is dogshit! Never meet your heroes, I guess, especially when they’re Nick Currie.

Coaltar of the Deepers

not their best album, but easily the one with the best art

Oh man, these guys are legit. If my description of the final Flipper’s Guitar album made it come off as an eclectic genre mashup, then this band is downright overwhelming. We’ve got band members who are really into noise rock and abrasive metal. Others are clearly here for the shoegaze. And finally, there’s the one guy on synths who does electronica that sound like it’s destined for Ape Escape. Their early works jump between all of these from track to track at a breakneck pace, but they finally release a more coherently organized album with 2007’s Yukari Telepath. It starts off with some of the most aggressive metal you’ve ever heard, which gradually softens into shoegaze as the album goes on, with some spectacular dreamy electronica in the middle. When the breaks in Aquarian Age come on, or the jaw-dropping xylophone solos later on, you will understand.

Coaltar of the Deepers have a bunch of side projects with different lineups, and as expected they lean into the strengths of the members working on them. There’s the hardcore BP, glitchy electronica Watchman, and more atmospheric Sadesper Record. The CotD extended universe been one hell of a rabbit-hole to fall down, but they’ve kept me very busy.

Honorable Mention: Shonen Knife

Yellow Loveless is mostly a wash, but Shonen Knife’s cover of When You Sleep is better than the original.

_

I’ve spent most of this past year miserable. My physical health has decimated my mental health, and it’s bad enough that I couldn’t ignore the problems even if I wanted to. I’ve shied away from considering myself chronically ill so far, but when I write it all out and reflect on just how much all of this lowers my quality of life, it gets a bit more imaginable as a way to understand myself as I currently am.

One silver lining to all this trying meds and running tests and failing to be diagnosed is that we’ve eliminated a lot of the scariest possibilities. No cancer, no allergies, nothing that would show up on an abdominal CT scan, and my lungs are powerful and sexy and not the source of my intermittent breathing problems I forgot to mention earlier. I’m not going anywhere. But at the same time, it’s hard for me to even conceptualize a future where I continue to feel like this every day, for years or decades on end. I have to get better. In the words of Sufjan Stevens, I want to be well.

Hopefully next year’s music post comes with good news alongside the good tunes.

[transienturl]

...I just realized that I effectively have my own form of "best stuff first"

insofar as I look at every original post on my dash down to wherever I last left off first, and then sort of randomly scroll through all of the reblogs only looking at things that catch my eye

perhaps in some sense I do want an "algodash," just one with a deterministic algorithm quite different from the way current ones work. I have tried the explore tab and I have the experience vehemently because it feels like it just surfaces stuff that demands attention, just like other algodashes around the web. congrats, you have correctly found content that I might engage with, but potentially engaging with something is not the same as wanting to see that content and only that content. if the input into your algorithm is whether people engage with something at all it's stupid imo (even though, yes, that is the data you have)

I'm sure it's terrible for revenue and active user metrics or whatever but just like I want the Youtube algorithm to inform me about interesting things about the world and then stop when it runs out rather than make me spend more time on the site, I want Facebook and Tumblr to inform me about interesting things about my friends and mutuals and community, and then stop when it runs out.

You can feel it, when the algorithm starts getting desperate. I watch incredible amounts of Youtube, but I have a user style that hides all of the videos on the Youtube homepage and when I used to occasionally turn it off just to see what it's up to, it was usually just 12 second clips with clickbait titles, just begging for you to see this wild thing that happened, please, please, don't you wanna know what the title refers to? It felt really pathetic, honestly. (I just tried it and it's mostly videos from channels I subscribe to and actually related videos now; I guess they improved it.)

But like, I don't want to go about my life and "feel" the algorithms doing anything. If something is calculated algorithmically and opaquely to attempt to cater to my whim (or more realistically, to attempt to engage me on a platform), I want it to be because I pressed the button. I hate the phone features that are like, "we'll keep your home screen updated with relevant info!" I am fine with, and happy with, "ask your phone and it'll give you some relevant info!"

Well, this post got away from my original point.

[minnesotadruids]

I applaud your stand on racism. Could you give examples of the racism you see in the druid community? What exactly has been said or posted. Also would there be any history supporting the isolation of the druids? Did they ever come in contact with people of africa ever?

The first one that comes to mind is one of my ex-grovemates whose membership I terminated a year or two ago when someone sent me video proof of him harassing people in public. I actually don’t want to give out specifics on that incident because it actually made local news briefly. At the time he did have symbols of racial bias. He later attended a private social gathering and allegedly harassed a transgender person and got into a verbal altercation before being removed from the vicinity. After he was booted from Oakdale Grove, other grovemates came forward with complaints against him I wish I would have been informed of sooner, as he was an all-around asshole in addition to being a racist.

My YouTube videos on druidry occasionally received comments from people who subscribed to racist channels. One of them commented that since I’m hispanic I can’t be a druid because they don’t have Celtic blood. I’ve stated before there’s no genetic requirement to be a druid, so not only was this racist individual incorrect about that, but he’s also wrong about me not having Celtic blood. There were Iberian Celts in far western Europe in the Iron Age, including what is now Portugal and Spain. They’re still there - the Basque people are ethnically Celtic still today.

I don’t need to defend myself with caveats that I do have Iberian Celtic ancestry, nor do I need to tout my DNA test results for validation. A mantra growing in the druid or Celtic pagan community is (paraphrased) leave genetics out of it. Don’t let ancestry be the sole reason for exploring any given modern spirituality.

As a morbid fascination, I watched a couple YouTube videos of a conservative druid in Poland to try to understand how they rationalize their way through their beliefs, and he started rambling about protecting “white heritage” in Europe, and called it a dying culture. He segued into promoting total abstinence until marriage, and restoring women to what he described as their proper submissive roles. The longer I watched, the more disgusted I was with his backwards rhetoric. He kept circling back to rambling about white culture and pride. I watched one more video and it was just more of the same, ranting against interracial marriages, claiming it’s “white genocide” and right then I was just done with him. 

Unfortunately YouTube’s algorithms assumed I was interested in watching more of his videos and kept recommending them to me. That’s when I remembered to just report his content and channel. A few of his videos got taken down, but YouTube said some of them did not violate their guidelines and his channel stayed up, so I just blocked him.

Then there was the Neo-Nazi who liked Oakdale Grove’s Facebook page. His profile page banner was a photo of a Nazi flag over his bed. On his timeline he said he was a self-described asshole and didn’t care what anyone thinks. He had also posted a selfie of his swastika tattoo. His Likes page was rife with Folkish, Heathen, Odinist interests. Heathenism in itself is fine, but it’s being hijacked by racists. He also had Celtic and general pagan interests. But there were a lot of Neo-Nazi likes and a lot of confederate flags to boot. I felt nauseated that a person of that character had liked Oakdale Grove’s page. Luckily I was able to remove his “Like” from my end, and banned him from the page, then reported his profile and Facebook suspended his profile (whether permanently or until he cleaned up his content, I do not know).

As for your questions about ancient druids, I don’t believe they were very isolated, as some may have traveled beyond the druid schools to acquire more knowledge. One druid who we know by name, Divitiacus, was an acquaintance of Julius Caesar and served as a representative of the Aedui tribe of Celts. The ancient druids did not write down their own customs, but some druids were probably literate. It is possible that some druids may have made their way to Alexandria, Egypt to visit the Great Library to acquire more knowledge. 

Unfortunately I don’t think there is any surviving documentation from ancient times that would indicate to what extent they had much interaction from the peoples of Africa. Furthermore when the Great Library of Alexandria was burned, so much of the historical record was lost forever. However, during the Bronze and Iron Ages, tin ore was widely exported from southwestern England, and copper ore was exported from Wales. This fostered a vast trade network of other goods circulating around the known world at the time, and I think there is archaeological evidence that these trade routes that extended to North Africa and the Middle East, but it’s been about seven years since I’ve read about it so I’m foggy on the source.

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

The End of Year Awards Are Back... and This Time, It’s Personal!

And so we approach the end of 2020, the year that never really began. On paper, at least, it looked incredibly promising. There were lots of great movies slated to come out; culture seemed slightly less paucity-riddled and pointless than usual; good things were in the air. Then COVID happened, and basically fucked everything. Actually, that’s not quite true: my personal year has been fucking spectacular. I’m in a long-term relationship with a gorgeous woman for the first time in forever- no more abrupt trysts and stolen moments for yer humble narrator: I’ve got a sumptuously plus-size lady-friend who actually wants to spend substantial amounts of time me (and has knockers you could sled down, were you so inclined). I also started a Youtube channel where I upload performances of magic tricks I’ve designed and a few people seem to quite like it. Oh, and I’ve written four novels, with a fifth well on its way to completion. Unfortunately, that’s my life, not the life of our civilisation and culture as a whole. The fact that bugger all happened in that makes this end-of-year round-up a little hard to write. With that in mind, I’m going to hand out the gongs for 2020, but I’m also going to do my usual dodge of giving end-of-year awards to things that I discovered in 2020, even if they came out the year, decade or century before. It’s not like any right-minded person gives a hoot about my opinion anyway. Right then, everyone clear on the rules? Then let’s roll up our sleeves and plunge elbow deep into the fetid trough of our decaying society to ferret out the best and worst of the Things That Humans Have Done Recently.

The ‘I Like It Because It Confused Thick People’ Award for Best High-Concept Sci-Fi Movie... … Goes to the sterling Tenet, a spy film that used entropy inversion and symmetric, opposite-direction timelines within the same physical space the way most spy films use hacking and guns. Christopher Nolan films are always intricately constructed and meticulously-executed, but this one must have had Japanese Master Puzzle-Box Makers crying into their breakfast cereal. Is breakfast cereal a thing in Japan? I honestly I have no idea. For some reason, all I can imagine is a sort of dry kedgeree where all the ingredients that aren’t rice have been removed. But I digress. For all its intricacy, Tenet is actually really easy to follow once you’ve grasped the basic premise that there’s a machine that lets people move backwards through time, and that this makes them appear to move in reverse to the rest of the world while they perceive the rest of the world as moving in reverse. Nolan maintains a mastery of cinematic visual language that makes even the most abstruse concept easy to wrap your head around. Nonetheless, following Tenet’s release, dumb people took to the Internet on mass to complain that the film was confusing and stupid, never once realising that their inability to conceptualise time in non-linear ways was their own failing, not Nolan’s. I find that refreshing. It’s nice to see a sci-fi film that’s actually made for smart-cookie sci-fi fans and doesn’t give a hoot if it alienate thickos.

The Award for Most Inexplicably Compelling Web Comic… … Goes to Questionable Content. I originally started reading Questionable Content because I’d heard that the female lead and love interest was a plus size lassie and that shit’s my jam. However, the art style makes everyone look like a skinny indie-type, regardless of their actual, in-universe size, so it doesn’t do much to titillate my Fat Admiring Titillation Centres. And yet, I’m over five hundred ‘episodes’ in and still reading. The thing is, I couldn’t tell you why for the life of me. Maybe it’s the hope that the art style will evolve to the point where the people look like actual human beings with different body types (but then, why would I care unless I was invested for some other reason). Maybe it’s the fact that when I get one of the many, many obscure band or pop culture references, I feel a little buzz of kinship with the writer. Maybe it’s the fact that it takes place in a universe where robots and superheroes are things that regularly happen, yet most of the strips are just normal people chatting shit in a coffee shop and the slice-of-life narrative/sci-fi setting appeals to my sense of juxtaposition. I don’t know, but I find it really compelling to the extent that I’ve pissed away entire days reading it. I have a horrible feeling that it’s a short step from this to really angsty hentai. If I start singing the praises of that, somebody please shoot me in the crotch.

The ‘Forest Gump Debating Peter Andre’ Award For Most Sustained or Elongated Instance of Stupidity… … Goes to Donald Trump. I was tempted just to award this gong to his entire presidency, but that wasn’t just stupid: it was also venal, corrupt, horrifying and punctuated by terrible moments of low cunning. So, instead, this award goes to his ‘soup’ rant. For those of you who missed it, the former President of the United States spent a really, really long time (in the run-up to the election) wittering on about protestors throwing cans of soup at police. What was dumb and weird about it was that he appeared to be extolling the virtues of soup as a siege weapon, going into really specific detail about how it was better than a brick because it could be thrown with more force, finishing with the utterance that protestors would just argue that “this is just soup for my family” if they were caught with the cans… which is phrased wrong in such a subtle and inhuman way it’s hard to imagine that anyone actually ever said it, at least in those words. I have no idea if protestors in America were throwing soup cans at police (which would be entirely justified considering how many innocent people American police have murdered in cold blood quite recently) or if this was a fantasy dreamed up by the former president in the cloudcuckooland that is his diseased little brain. Either way, the connected rant was balls deep in dumb.

The Most Disturbing Unintentional Impression of Vincent Price Award… … Goes to the narrator from One Step Beyond, a Twilight Zone-esque anthology of weirdness that purports to be based on true events and has to be seen to be believed. The stories are oft-disturbing instances of spooky-inflected human drama and can occasionally be quite disconcerting… until they’re book-ended by a dude who sounds like Vincent Price reading a children’s book in a really earnest voice. It’s weird and no, it didn’t hit our screens in Space Year 2020, it dates back to Ye Olden Times of the 1950s or 60s, when men were men, women were women and technincolour was a distant dream that could get you strung up for witchcraft. Nonetheless, I only encountered it this year, so it’s getting its prize. I warned you I was going to pull this shit, but you foolish fools didn’t listen.

The ‘It’s Not Gay If I Don’t Clench’ Award for Cognitive Dissonance… … Goes to Amazon Prime, the content-making branch of evil, tax-dodging, anti-monopoly-law-breaking megalith Amazon. You see, while Big Daddy Amazon is off being incredibly sinister and worrying, like a shifty vampire hanging off the economy’s throat, the creative people at Amazon Prime are busy making or acquiring some of the flat-out best TV ever committed to a streaming-service, from the extra-weird slice of fun-pie that is The Tick, to the entertainingly horrifying cultural dissection of The Boys to the utterly unique Carnival Row, to the superbly adapted American Gods. It’s a bit like discovering that Geoffrey Dahlmer single-handedly created a body of artistic work to rival Vincent Van Gogh’s when he wasn’t pouring acid onto the brains of emotionally vulnerable young adults. It gives me a headache.

The Clint Eastwood Award for Most Effective Older Gentlemen… … Goes to Joe Biden, for unseating dipshit in chief Donald Trump with the casual badassery of a Wild West gunslinger shooting a baddy (probably played by Leonardo Di Caprio) in the balls. I mean, he’s not the best Prez America could ask for but a) as a Brit I don’t have to care and b) anyone who ousts Trump gets mad props from me.

The ‘It’s a Pity Everything Else is Shit Now’ Award for Best New Ongoing Series… … Goes to my own Youtube series, Victor The Magician, in which I claim to be a reality-hopping, interdimensional wizard on an endless quest to… perform magic, basically. I’ll admit that the quality is super-variable (Youtube algorithms and their constant demand for fresh content be a harsh mistress, etc., etc.). However, when I’m good, I’m really good. If you’re looking for a punch-line other than the fact that this whole bit is a self-promoting plug, it’s this: my Youtube series really was the best thing to come out this year. Not because I’m great or anything, just by default. A promising year really did turn into a cultural wasteland the moment COVIDius Rex reared its scaly head.

The Zombie Ian Curtis Award for Most Crushing Disappointment… … Goes to Rick and Morty Series 4. As I think I’ve said before, it was still good, but it just didn’t reach the dizzy heights of nihilistic lunacy achieved in series 1-3. I think the problem is that the audience is meant to learn something from Rick’s poor choices, even if he doesn’t, because the creators saw the amazing success of Bojack Horseman and decided they wanted a slice of that sweet, tangy deconstructionist pie. It worked up to a point in the climax of Series 3, but having made their point, the showrunners probably should have moved onto a different point. They forgot that the appeal of Rick Sanchez is his combination of ‘entertaining car-crash of a human being’ and ‘unstoppable superbeing’. Push him through an arc and you risk breaking the thing that makes him and the show so endlessly watchable. Rick, unlike Bojack, just wasn’t built for heavy introspection. Also, the team hired on new writers who were less than familiar with the characters, setting and subtext, and that’s always an invitation to disaster.

The Special Sir Mixalot Award for Posteriority… ...Goes to… my girlfriend and glamorous assistant, Mystic Miss Terri, who’s arse is gorgeous and majestic.

The ‘Are They STILL Making That?’ Award for a Show You Forgot Existed And is Now Back… … Goes to Supernatural, which never technically went away and whose final series is apparently being broadcast on one of the 4 channels (though who knows which one, any more), It’s kind of nice to realise it’s still out there and be reminded that there are still people who care deeply about what happens to it. It’s like when you remember ‘oh yeah, [insert cute animal here] actually exists and isn’t just an internet meme. That’s nice’. Also, it’s good to see Jared Padelacki working steadily. It can’t be easy to find acting gigs when most producers just want to shoot you and mount your antlers over a fireplace.

The Irritating Magician Award for Something That Just Won’t Fuck Off… ...Goes to this blog entry, which is three pages long in Word. Good grief. Bye y’all! See you next year, assuming that the last few days of 2020 don’t culminate in a civilisation-destroying attack by giant space-ants. If that seems worryingly specific, let’s just say that- as Leonard Cohen would say “I’ve seen the future and, brother, it is murder”… by giant space-ants.

[kuiperblog]

Soundcloud might be the last cool place on the internet

I recently found myself thinking, “You know, out of all of the platforms that are built on user-generated content, Soundcloud is the last one that feels cool.”

This is kind of a gripe about an issue typified by Youtube, which is the ultimate example of a platform where people slavishly produce content fitting the mold of what (they think) the algorithm demands.  Like, I understand that the quality and consistency of  content on Youtube in 2019 is undeniably higher than it was back in 2007 in the era of Youtube poops and jump-cut vlogs, but over time it feels like there’s a certain kind of creativity that just isn’t allowed to surface on Youtube anymore.  Youtube used to feel cool and indie, like it was on the frontier, and as the experience became more and more “optimized,” that got squeezed out of it.

I’ve seen the same thing happen to different platforms to varying degrees. But Soundcloud still feels cool and weird in all of the best ways. I’m not even sure how to describe my “browsing habits” on Soundcloud, it just feels like the only place where, without any real deliberate digging, I can find a deluge of content that is both exactly to my liking and also completely novel. And not “novel” as in “new to me,” but as in “this track has less than 1000 plays, but due to my weirdly eclectic taste, hearing it is maybe the best thing to happen to me all day.”

I’ve been trying to puzzle through why that is.

Is it something about the content that gets posted to Soundcloud and the people who make it? It could be. Youtube seems to attract people with dreams of becoming a professional Youtuber, and also people who are clout-hungry, wanting to turn their “personality” into a product.  From what I can tell, it’s basically impossible to make money on Soundcloud, and in the corner of the platform that I’ve dug myself into, it doesn’t feel like it’s the kind of thing that would appeal to someone lusting for clout. Like, obviously everyone wants attention, but people don’t aspire to be a “famous Soundcloud rapper,” they want to be a famous rapper. (Whereas there are actually kids who aspire to be “Youtubers.”)  Soundcloud is not the end game, unless your only end game is sharing the weird tunes you cooked up in your bedroom with the world.  It feels a lot like Youtube circa 2007, or Newgrounds circa 2003: a place where you can become “internet famous” in the way that Egoraptor the flash cartoonist was internet famous (as opposed to the way that Arin Hanson the Game Grump is currently internet famous). The attitude seems to be one of, “Look what I made!” rather than “Look at me!”

Is it something in particular about music? It could just be that it’s easier for me to complain about a crappy Youtube video than a mediocre track because the Youtube video demands your full attention, whereas the track could pass in one ear and out the other while I’m immersed in some engrossing task, and there are certain moods where basically all I want is a rhythmic beat in my ears, whereas Youtube videos should delight or entertain or inform (or all of the above simultaneously).  Also, a lot of the music I listen to is basically made by one person.

Related to both of the above, there’s something about the Matthew Principle which comes into play with something like Youtube, where the site is constantly trying to get me to watch celebrities on Jimmy Fallon and trailers for blockbuster movies and music videos for the most popular songs in the world, because this is what other people are into, and I often find myself clicking on this because as generic and middling as it is, it’s also clearly a class above a lot of the content on Youtube in terms of production value.  You can tell the difference between a Youtube that was made by a team of 10 people versus made by one person in their bedroom, and even if the solo act is more creative or authentic or “pure,” it’s easier for the team to assemble something that feels like a “superior product.”  I’m not so sure the same thing is true of music: does the song that was engineered in a lab really sound “higher fidelity” than a mashup made by a disciple of Isosine working with nothing but a Macbook?

Another thing that Soundcloud has going for it is that you can “repost” tracks, in the same way that you would “retweet” on twitter or “reblog” on tumbr.  When you follow a creator on Soundcloud, you’re not only seeing their content, you’re seeing all content that they see fit to repost, which tends to be similar to their content most of the time, so there’s a lot of user-curation going on.  I occasionally see the community tab on Youtube used the same way (people making a post to say, “Hey, check out this cool video that my friend posted” or “I just appeared in a video on this other channel, go check it out”) but it’s not part of the platform’s DNA like it seems to be on Soundcloud.

It could be any of these things.  But I also find myself wondering if Soundcloud, despite feeling like the most indie, least algorithmic site that still has a soul, might actually be better on the back of its recommendation engine.

See, there’s a problem with Youtube’s algorithm, which is that for all of the data they gather and analytics they perform, it has a tough time identifying good content.  It can easily identify engaging content, but content can be engaging for a lot of reasons: maybe the content is engaging because it makes you mad (and so if you watch a single clip of Ben Shapiro or Steven Crowder you will see nothing but their faces on your Youtube recommendations page for days, and it feels like there is an entire genre of Youtube channel that can be best described as “outrage merchant”).  Maybe the content is “engaging” because the video creator gave you a clickbait headline that made you ask a question, and managed to construct the video in such a way that every sentence makes you feel like you’re almost on the verge of getting what you clicked the video for, and 8 minutes later you’ve realized you’ve been watching a barely-competent video in hopes of it delivering on a promise that never fulfilled. (This video will be objectively more engaging than a video that just gives you want it promised up front, meaning that optimizing for engagement makes the content of the platform objectively worse!)  The like/dislike bar should help in theory, but “like” can mean either “this is the best video I have ever seen” or “this video is uninteresting but I agree with this person’s opinion and want to reward them for having the right opinion.”  Also, the fact that “calls to action” (smash that like button, remember to subscribe) are objectively shown to lead to higher engagement (despite subjectively making the content worse) sort of expose the problem inherent in Youtube metrics.

Fundamentally, the problem that Youtube seems to struggle with is that it’s really hard to reward exceptionally good content, because once you’ve watched the entire video, liked it, and left an encouraging comment, what else is there to do? How is a robot supposed to distinguish my response to a 7/10 video from my response to a 10/10 video?  Or even a crappy video that I watched to completion despite the fact that it was crappy?

Soundcloud doesn’t have this problem.  When people listen to a song and like it, they don’t just listen to it once.  They listen to it multiple times.  Dozens of times.  When I really like a song, it’s possible for me to reward that song in a way that makes a robot recognize, “Hey, this person really likes this song.”  And I’m not even consciously rewarding it; though I will sometimes hit the “like” button, when I re-listen to a song (either by manually pulling it up, or by putting it on a playlist which ensures that I’ll hear it at least once a week), I’m doing that selfishly, for me.  I don’t need to hear a person’s voice saying “Remember to add this song to your work playlist,” I do that by myself.  And the “repost” function also allows people with followings on Soundcloud to reward good content by making it appear on their followers’ timelines.  (These power users also tend to be the people who have some modicum of taste, or at the very least people who are plugged into the interests of the platform with an understanding of what people enjoy.)

Regardless of how it’s happened, it’s still kind of wild that Soundcloud manages to score higher than almost any platform across all of my personal metrics: how unique and novel the content is, the median quality level of the content that’s automatically served to me, the infrequency with which I encounter low-quality content, how often it makes feel “this piece of content is my new favorite thing,” and just about anything I’d correlate with overall goodness and enjoyment.  I’m increasingly of the opinion that Soundcloud might be my favorite part of the Internet.

[thevortexofourminds]

On leaving Tumblr

I’ve been on Tumblr for about six years with this blog. It’s a niche blog with a small number of followers (but WHAT amazing ones. I love you guys and girls) - at least when we look at the numbers that some of the bigger blogs have. Numbers are not important to me. And the number of followers doesn’t say anything anyway. I love this blog, and my only interest always was to create a blog that I would want to follow. And apparently, there are a handful of people who have the same kind of interests as I have. My photography-blog @tvoom is bigger. The number of people following this blog and the number of notes on some of my photos - to me personally - are mindblowing. Even though this blog probably still doesn’t count as a big blog, I would have never expected that my photos will ever attract this attention. My more experimental photo-blog @tvoom365 is very small. One reason certainly is that I rarely post anything and hardly ever “promote” it. Or maybe the photos are not as good ;) But the feedback was always astoundingly positive.

One of the biggest mistakes I made in my time on Tumblr was to delete my writing-blog. Two years of writings and recordings were gone. I deleted the blog because I realized that the reason I made that blog in the first place was not a “reason” for me anymore. I was stupid enough to think that just because that one thing in my life which made me start writing (again) changed, I will have no reason to write anymore. HA! Well... at least I still learn. I might be stubborn but not THAT stubborn.

I learned two things through that:

a) Stories don’t have a meaning beyond the meaning that we assign to them. And we can assign any meaning we want to. So a story changes by how we read a story. You as the reader and I as the author are equal parts in the creation process. And neither your opinion nor my opinon is the “right” opinion or the “correct” way to understand or interpret a story. Because what’s in your head is nothing I can change anyway. So... I will not apologize for what’s in your mind. Because I didn’t put it in there.  It’s the old “When a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it - does it make a sound?” thing. No, it doesn’t. The falling of the tree creates changes in air pressure. But "sound” is only created by the listener. And what that specific sound means to the listener... that’s dependent on the listener and highly personal. So much for “objectivity” ;P After this face-palm moment, I started to write and record again and gathered a tiny but wonderful audience.

b) Tumblr is not @staff or @support or a CEO or any person who “pulls the strings”. Tumblr is you, and me, and everyone who has a blog. A community only exists because of the people who take part in it. Agreed, the boundaries changed, but what we put within these boundaries... that is upon us. In the last five years or so, I put a tremendous amount of time and effort into doing my part in creating an environment in which a community can grow. I met dozens of wonderful, creative and amazing people, I was fortunate of having the privilege of being part of some of the coolest projects that I can imagine. And all of these things are and were only possible because of the people involved. People who do and did what they do and did DESPITE all the hardships. DESPITE all the problems. Who just did what they love doing and not to gain anything from it. I have the deepest respect for all the creators and curators of all sorts of genres on Tumblr. Because I KNOW how hard it is to keep something going for years and years and years. Thank YOU for doing what you do. And to those of you, that I have the privilege of working with directly (too many to mention): I love you all. And I am grateful for you. All I did and all I do was only possible because of you and the thousands and thousands of supporters, artists or no.  Leaving Tumblr would mean that I’d not only give up on what I’ve achieved and what I’ve been doing for years, what I was part of building up, but it would also mean that I’d be giving up on myself. Heck... it took me decades to find out who I am. I will not give up on this crazy dumbfuck that I am ;P Because that is what I am. I am a person who creates, I am a person who loves to share knowledge, beauty, art, and sometimes (well... quite often) a stupid joke. I love to share my experiences and art in all sorts of ways. And since Tumblr never was a platform that allowed me to do this in exactly the way I wanted to, I always used other platforms as well. Tumblr’s video-player is probably the worst in the history of the internet, so I’ve been posting my videos to YouTube. Tumblr’s audio-player is a bad joke, so I post my audios to Soundcloud. And I embed that all in my Tumblrs.

Tumblr’s “adult content ban” will most certainly go down in internet-history as one of the most hypocritical “internet moves” ever. The interesting bit is that it probably will be known as “the porn ban”. Which is not even true. I’ve seen people post claims like that “Tumblr now defines nude-photography (or anything that the dysfunctional algorithms flagged) as porn and therefore bans it”. That’s not true. The truth is worse. The truth is not even that Tumblr bans genitals and therefore also porn. Yes, nudity and genitals are banned. And porn is banned. Smarter people than I wrote in much more intelligent ways than I ever could what’s bad about this. But rarely have I seen anyone write about the real big problem. The big problem is that the new community guidelines of Tumblr are sexualizing women by banning female nipples except for photography of breastfeeding and medical reasons. So, the legality of showing parts of the female body is based on the function. If the photo does not depict this function, the photo is deemed sexual. And sex is forbidden. While male nipples don’t have any other function (at least not that I’m aware of, please educate me) other than being an erogenous zone. Just think about this for a moment. Male nipples are allowed. Because banning male nipples... that is prudish, isn’t it? But looking at how incredibly hypocritical and bigoted the western world (and especially the US) is at the moment, this just fits, doesn’t it?

The question is: Should we let the idiots win? Only the unorthodox, the ones that pushed boundaries, the non-streamlined, the experimentalists - in short - the “un-normal ones” make the world evolve. “Conservatism” derives from “to conserve”. And we only conserve what is already dead so that it doesn’t start to smell. It’s too late Tumblr. This doesn’t smell. It already stinks.

Some people will HAVE to go to other places to not compromise on their art or self-expression, leaving Tumblr only a stump of what it once was and maybe will never recover from. Unless we creators find a way to stay true to ourselves and use the base of what is still here to create something new and amazing. As a curator of (also) artistic nude-photography, an occasional artistic nude-photographer myself, and an artist who also makes “adult-themed” art, Tumblr is dead for me in this specific area. Will I use a different platform for these things? Since “adult writing” is not banned (yet) I can continue here. For the rest: Maybe. I might re-open my Flickr (Flickr belongs to the same company btw... and allows artistic nudes... hypocrisy much? Edit: I learned that Flickr was sold to SmugMug) or I might start a DeviantArt account. I don’t know yet. I will certainly reference these new places in case I’ll decide to give it a go. Fact is that I will expand. Creativity is change. And no, we will not like each and every change. But hey... that’s life. As long as we change, we live. Also, I will certainly not let stupid, bigoted, greedy, hypocritical liars limit me. And the big lie is that it was never about “making Tumblr a better, more positive place”. It very much sounds like “Make Tumblr great again”, doesn’t it? It’s the same set of mind. The same priority: Greed. It was always only and exclusively about money. And apparently, Tumblr can make more money with actual Nazis still around and with nudity banned. I am German, my great-grandparents lived through a time in which real artists had to flee a place and the Nazis stayed...

Another thing: How is Tumblr a better, more positive place with the porn-bot problem still not being solved? Granted, we will not see any visual porn anymore, but the bots are still there. And they still follow and reblog posts, they add or even replace the original content (”thanks” to the prior Tumblr “improvement”) with links to shabby sex-sites and “sex offers”. That is your more positive Tumblr, @staff . Congrats! You fucked up royally. Because now it’s even evident that this was never your concern anyway.

Since @pwsfineartnudes cannot continue after December 17th, 2018, and I was asked to join @abstract-challenge (after Amy sadly left Tumblr for personal reasons), maybe that is one way to expand. So I will happily and gladly try to find ways to contribute to this - for me - very new and very different fascinating photographic adventure. Thank you for the challenge and the trust you put into me.

Rock on, my friends! You are Tumblr! You will only get out of it what you put in. You are amazing! Always have that in mind.

- Pete 

[mcninjakitty]

_The irony in this? You’re on Tumblr. _

Ice Cream  

**Uce Cream **

We’re all pretty familiar with the term “like for like” or “follow for follow” right? It

exists on almost every website you visit. Even in Youtube videos, publishers are

making sure to include that statement in their recordings. It’s a pretty important

sentence, it’s the only way to spread the word about you or your brand. For big

name companies, it’s pretty easy as they’re already well known to everyone,

things like “Like our page on Facebook for weekly coupons!” will get just about

any savvy shopping consumer to hit that thumbs up! For the most part, we all

know that, the social media marketplace was created by big companies to profit

from the internet. And what a glorious decision that was! Schwans grocery store

home delivery!? I never have to leave home again! (seriously!) We’re also

aware that social media network is just an easier way for us to communicate to

each other about Schwans grocery store home delivery! insert sarcasm  _

 I ordered the chicken. Staying for dinner?

So why exactly do we constantly find ourselves getting lost on Youtube at night,

posting that sad picture of our salads, or a status update thinking like our

friends could relate to it? A little word called Homophily. (It’s kinda’ little, I

think?) It’s derived from the ancient Greek word Homou, “together” and it’s

known as wanting to seek out people who act and think like ourselves. Pretty

much narcissism, just a fancier word. 

_Feeling the Need _

So, by now you’re probably wondering, “well, what does your fancy word have

to do with me? I like surfin’ the web to pass the time in the john, you know the

deeaal! “Well that’s my point, so does everyone else. See, there’s plenty of

people like us, and it’s that very reason we tend to keep our inner circles close.

We feel as though we may not find others, yet we keep trying. Once we

establish a connection in real life, we find ourselves wanting an online

connection as well, so as to not lose touch, you know? because someone will

definitely act like they don’t know you after going home and then seeing them

the next day. (there’s that sarcasm again) According to Seiter, (n.d.) the feeling

of wanting likes on social media, taps into our primal urges of wanting attention,

creating addictions and what brings us joy.  Social connection becomes

desirable because let’s face it, NO. ONE. WANTS. TO. FEEL. ALONE. Being

alone makes us do and say things that don’t end up benefiting us in a positive

way at all. Feeling lonely however, makes us re-evaluate the way we look at

ourselves, we wonder why we’re alone and why no one approaches us

(Zhivotovskaya, Alloro, n.d.). Maybe it’s our appearance, maybe it’s our

interests, or, maybe our hygiene but you’re too embarrassed to tell anyone

about it so you hope no one notices you smell funnier and funnier every day!

 Social media allows us to develop a digital persona where no one can see the

real us unless we really want them to. It’s those feelings of insecurity that gives

us the need for attention, and who can blame someone who has never had it?

Once you get offered a snack you want the whole kitchen!  

_One in the same. _

_I like it, Do you?_

One like can go a very long way in social media. The algorithms of websites like

Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, are specifically designed to constantly monitor

the search and “Like”, “Follow” or “Tweet” of its users. This is how the always

refreshing “feed” of the sites is showing something related to your previous

online history. The concept is, “hey you like this, so does this person. oh wait!

This person does too! Check out how many likes or shares this person got for

liking the same thing! Actually, everybody likes it!” More and more of the same

will pop up on your feed. This phenomenon is known to expand on social

media. It’s the only place where things expand instantly! The more people like

memes of Kermit, the more he becomes a more prominent presence when

logging in. Bisgin, Halil & Agarwal, Nitin & Xu, Xiaowei in (2012) wrote in their

article “A study of Hemophily on Social Media”, that it, [social media] which is

more than just the space for interactions, surpassed all the requirements

needed in terms of growth for reasons unknown. You meet new people online

the same way you meet them in real life. Rad! _

They’re Watching You..Yes..THEY. _

Today, everybody that’s anybody knows now that anything you search

especially on Google , will somehow appear on Facebook as an ad. I mean

really! I was freaking out when I saw the Purple Mattress ad on my Facebook

feed. Like, this isn’t some regular thing on Facebook, why is it appearing now?

OH! It’s because of the Algorithms. Videos, pictures and quotes appear more

based on how relevant they are. If you’re an avid social media user like me,

you’ll recall that Facebook used to just show content from the brands,

companies and big names you liked with the occasional high school friend

posting about their 5th child. Well at a conference in 2018, Facebook founder

Mark Zuckerberg, announced that the algorithms for the site will be set to

prioritize more family and friends (Tien, 2018). The point of online interactions

is to stay connected with family in new ways right? WRONG! What about social

media marketing? (That’s actually a job!) The fact that people hit thumbs up on

the same things makes for an impressive use of resources when it comes to

business. I mean, if I was Target and I noticed that people are liking a lot of

pictures of a puppet of Kermit the frog sippin’ tea in different positions, I would

show them where to buy that exact puppet to make their own hilarious photos..

To share and have people like and go viral and continue the cycle!

_References _

Bisgin, Halil & Agarwal, Nitin & Xu, Xiaowei. (2012). A study of homophily on social media. WorldWideWeb. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220301971_A_study_of_homophily_on_social_media

Seiter, C.,(n.d.) The Psychology of Social Media: Why we Like, Comment and Share Online. Buffer. Retrieved from: https://buffer.com/resources/psychology-of-social-media

Tien, S.,(2018) How the Facebook Algorithm Works and How to Make it Work for You. Hootsuite. Retrieved from: https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-algorithm/

_Zhivotovskaya, Alloro,(n.d.) Why Social Connection is So Important. The Flourishing Center. Retrieved from: https://theflourishingcenter.com/why-social-connection-is-so-important/ _

[chuckling-chemist]

Subscriber Desperation

((I make one “Youtube’s not a real job” joke on skaian-heretic’s post and suddenly I’m making Jacksfilms jokes and writing a goddamn crackfic featuring Ardata. I’ll be fair...I’m not sure exactly how IC this is for Ardata, and more importantly I’m not sure I care. This was just for some hopefully dumb humor.))

“I cannot believe Grubtube changed their algorithm! And to attempt to introduce user feedback. The nerve…” the blueblood typing furiously on her keyboard scowled deeply. “No wonder I’ve lost so many subscribers.”

Naturally, due to Ardata’s high status and sinister persona, the number of people commenting on her work in comparison to her views was low. But for sweeps, such hadn’t been a problem. She always managed to keep on top of Grubtube’s changing formulas to keep her on the top of trending tags for weeks. Obtain subscribers by occasionally making a video unrelated to your regular content, then push them to watch your other videos? Early on, of course, but she did. Get trolls to click on a video they’d hold no interest in through thumbclaws and titles promising sexual content that only appeared for seconds? Easy. Falsely inflate her video lengths through elongated intros and outros? Simple. But getting people to interact with her videos aside from a like? Impossible. Lowblood trolls wouldn’t comment on her videos to keep their olfactories safe from her, and higherbloods had better things to do with her time than leave a comment on a video involving brutal murder when they wouldn’t have to comment much in an online redblock. She had better things to do with her time.

With a frustrated groan, she clicked over to her imitators’ profiles. She needed some sort of method to make her look - Ardata shuddered at the mere thought of it - approachable. Enough so they might comment on her videos. Unfortunately for her, almost every profile she scanned did something different. Many relied on sponsorships from small, Internet companies. Some engaged in online feuds. And if those acts weren’t reprehensible on her own, others were worse. She held far too much pride to tell her subscribers to “smash the flush/pitched buttons” if they felt any strong feelings or run videos ran wholly on content produced by commenters. Her videos were art. The gutterbloods in her basement, her muse. Commenters weren’t allowed to dictate the type of art she produced, even if they drove her numbers up.

However, the longer she scrolled through her competition, she realized they all did something she hadn’t ever quite done. Many of these trolls seemed eager to talk about themselves in front of the camera with questions supplied by subscribers. Ardata did enjoy talking about herself. And, while she preferred working behind the camera as the director with complicated shots and angles to truly capture the spirit of the poor troll, an easy night of sitting at a camera and talking sounded just that: easy. She made the announcement on both Chittr and her most recent Grubtube video, informing them of an upcoming Q&A so please send your questions now.

The results were instantaneous. Her most recent video’s view count hit record highs within hours, placing it firmly in Grubtube’s top trending videos. Questions flooded her video, her Chittir, her inbox, anywhere they felt they could send them. For the first time in perigees - the first time since meeting that odd little alien - she was a big Grubtuber again. Famous. Esteemed. She set an established date for a full livestream set to be hours long (again, good for the algorithm), and pulled all the questions to be used from a random generator. So close to re-achieving the fame she once had on Grubtube she’d never have to try again if she wanted to. She set everything up the night before, from her husktop littered with questions to the camera itself.

Her preparations made the filming easy. She only had to start up the livestream on Grubtube, waiting for the red light to indicate she started filming and grimace menacingly at the camera. Of course, she made herself look equally enticing and imposing on her black couch, but that was just her regular aesthetic. To do anything else was disingenuous. “Hello. I’m sure you’re all here to watch Alternia’s best up-and-coming filmmaker on Grubtube answer your questions.” She smirked. “I’m so flattered you could make it. Unsurprised, judging by your ridiculous interest in my personal life, but flattered. So, let’s get this started before I lose interest.”

The first set of questions her husktop pulled up were straightforward. Trolls asked her about simple questions about her personal life: everything from her lusus to her quadrants, on top of numerous questions about all sorts of favorites. One even asked her about dayglow, and if she preferred it to other poisons. Ardata gave the viewers of the stream cryptic answers. After all, she didn’t really want to talk about her private life. She didn’t even want to answer questions at all. This was all just to please the Grubtube algorithm and gain her viewership back.

About halfway through the questions, after a slog of political minefields seemingly only there to upset some subjuggalator watching her videos, the questions started to get...well...weird. “‘Ardata,’” she read, “‘I’m a huge fan of your videos, but I gotta ask, I keep dabbing on my haters like other grubtubers told me to, but sometimes they dab back. I haven’t gotten an answer from them yet. Please help, I’m scared.”

Ardata’s smirk twisted into a dark frown. “If you’re scared, don’t dab at them. Shouldn’t that be simple?”

She flipped over to the next one, reading “Ardata? What’s your opinion on the film ‘The Funny Faces on Your Palm Husk Develop Personalities of Their Own Separate of the Ones They Are Supposed to Emote in a Sellout Family Comedy Featuring An Overabundance of Propaganda and Product Placement, The Plot Relying Wholly On Overused Concepts Done Better in Other Films? I heard it’s a visual masterpiece.” She scowled. “What kind of question is this? Did anyone even go see that refuse incinerator heap of a film?” She scoffed. “Please. Next question.”

She flipped down through the comments, reading many of them outloud as she skipped them. Ardata, when will you start giving us sponsorships at the end of your videos? Can’t wait to skip all of them!

Ardata, has anyone told you your lusus is half as cute as JuhannFlicks’ barkbeast?

Ardata, when will you do a collaboration with a screaming Grubtuber?

Have you considered what it feels like to be like us, an asshole talking to a camera?

Ardata, I need more challenge vids!

What’s your opinion on the Eastern Alternian flag made entirely of triangles? Do you agree it’s the absolute worst?

Over and over. The whole middle portion of Q&A seemed like...shitposts. Pure and idiotic shitposts. Her scowl deepend. “Understand, viewers, these questions are so inane I’m not even giving them a thought. Now, this one, since I ignored so many…” she flitted her gaze over to the next post, not even bothering to check to see what it said, “this one I’ll answer.”

Hey Ardata, how does it feel to know that you have no skills for the Ordeals because we all know Grubtube’s not a real job?

She paused, blinking slowly. Anger swelled in the pit of her stomach. How dare some troll insist what she did wasn’t a job! She profited, didn’t she? “I assure you, viewer, what I do is very real. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here right now,” she said tightly. “Now, let’s move on to the--”

She gasped. A whole slew of comments, none of them from the same troll, all asked the same question. Worded differently, but functionally the same. Grubtube’s not a real job.

“Q&A’s over early. I won’t be doing another one,” she snarled. With a quick snap of her wrist, the husktop clicked shut, ending the stream immediately.

It wasn’t until she sat there for several minutes, fuming silently, that she realized what she did. But it was too late now. She’d have to find another way to bring in new viewers through other means, and hope her outburst only drove minimal numbers away.

Hopefully.

***

Meanwhile, Juhann Scanan, popular oliveblooded comedic Grubtuber, watched the whole stream with anticipation. His lusus, a tiny little fluffy barkbeast he affectionately called Klondike, nipped at his arm. Normally he wasn’t interested in the drama of Grubtube, but the fall of Ardata Carmia was equal parts funny and necessary. Grubtube held enough bloodshed without yet another redblock wannabe hogging all the attention.

The video ended with a loud click, and Grubtube shoved him off the video onto her regular profile. The same question his followers asked over and over, she couldn’t even handle once.

Juhann laughed. Maybe it wasn’t the kindest idea to let his followers know he sent in one bizarre question about dabbing after making a song that happened to reference this Grubtube redblock trend.. But the bubbly satisfied feeling watching another villain of the website crumble under their own infamy felt justified, in a way. If you can’t adjust to the changing tides of a constantly evolving website, you’d fall behind. Ardata, and any other troll who mistakes ultraviolence for art and content, relying wholly on a supervillain status for popularity, would fall victim for that.

“Okay Klondike, get off me,” he said. “I gotta finish editing for tomorrow. Gotta finish that song.”

Klondike yipped happily in his face, making no attempt to move. Moving seemed out of the question. Juhann stretched, smiling sleepily at his lusus and yawning. “Fine,” he said with a light pat of the barkbeast’s head. Editing could wait for a day. “You win. I’ll sleep.”

((I’ll just say it here, yeah his matesprit’s just troll!Erin/2ToesUp and she has a similar lusus named Sundae))

[killfaeh]

Tipeee and Patreon pages updated

Hi everybody! Today I'm here to announce that I've finally been able to update my Tipeee and Patreon home pages. :D For those who are discovering, these are patronage platforms where one can support the activity of an artist/author by giving a small obole monthly or punctually. On Tipeee you can even help for free by watching promotional videos.

The mini comic presentation of the Patreon page. I'm happy with this cute style like comic Artist for Rent. :D

These two pages have been existed for 2 years now and I thank all the patrons who have helped. It doesn't allow me to live from my creations but it give me a boost of self-confidence knowing that there are people who believe in me and my skills. So, thank you all! :) Like many artists, I got a bit fooled by proposing content that required extra work (illustrations, tutorials, graphic resources...) that glanced at my usual activities (i.e. my comics and software development) to try to make these pages attractive. I couldn't do everything when I was unemployed, so now that I've found a full-time job to fill the fridge, it's going to be even more complicated. Plus, this bonus content didn't seem to really inspire much enthusiasm. So I've concocted something simpler for you. Today I'm here to present you the changes I've made to these pages:

What will remain

What will disappear

What will be new?

Rewards

What will remain

Comics

Obviously, the comics will remain since they are the main content and the reason why I opened these pages. ^^ I'm going to stay on the free web comic formula (because you have to publish content on the Internet regularly to attract new readers) with one month advance access and no watermark for patrons for serial projects. I also add Dragon Cat's Galaxia 1/2. Although this comic book features licenced characters, this one remains in the register of parody and humor. I also have non parodic fan comics ideas. Those will obviously not be financed via these platforms. On the other hand, for one-shot projects I'll do the same as for Tarkhan: the first pages published for free to give a preview, but the rest accessible exclusively to patrons and purchasers of the comicbook (because publishing content regularly on the Internet is useless if it's limited in time).

G-rated illustrations

The HD illustrations will remain as well. I have some in stock and I create new ones regularly, so I shouldn't find myself on a tight stream anytime soon.

What will disappear

NSFW illustrations

Exit the NSFW illustrations. I like to draw nudes of beautiful males from time to time, but unlike the other illustrations, I don't have a stock in advance, so I'm on a tight stream. It annoys me to have to force myself to do this kind of illustrations when I don't feel like it and especially when I don't have an interesting idea in mind instead of working on the main content. Moreover, the audience that supports me on Tipeee and Patreon is not the most interested in this kind of content (as far as I know), so if I ever propose this again, it might be elsewhere, on a different account or on another platform. For the moment I put it aside.

Tutorials

No more tutos. It's long to write and format, it's never read, and since there are lots of free tutos on YouTube, nobody wants to pay for it. I'd rather share and answer questions about my tips and tricks in person during meetings or on my live Twitch.

Graphic resources

Exit the graphic resource pack (brushes, patterns, color catalog...). As for NSFW illustrations, I don't necessarily have one every month to offer. It is important to know that I produce these graphic resources according to my needs when I work on my comics, so I don't get them out on a regular basis. Moreover, the resources in question don't necessarily correspond to your needs every month. People interested in my brush and screentone packs to use in their own comics made it clear to me that they preferred to buy them occasionally according to their needs on my own online store even if it meant paying the price and that going through Tipeee and Patreon for that bothered them. They see these platforms as a patronage system but not as buying platforms. So I'm simply going to remove that and I'll modify my online store to add the possibility to buy dematerialized goods.

What will be new?

Well, I'm going to incorporate into the main content my other activity that I had ignored in the rewards even though it occupies a huge part of my work: software development. Obviously all this is related. This activity includes, in addition to the evolution and maintenance of suiseipark.com, the development of the Péguy project, my games projects, as well as a comic platform project.

TGCM Comics (Website - in dev)

TGCM Comics is a web platform project dedicated to web comics and webtoons where budding or experienced authors will be able to publish their stories and exchange directly with their audience without technical knowledge on the web. Here's a mock-up that gives an idea of what it will look like.

As soon as the main functionalities are ready the site will be made available in beta test for patrons. Why this project? Many other such platforms have emerged in recent years. So I hesitated for a while before launching this project, but seeing that all of them impose trending algorithms that give headaches to many authors of the web, I recently decided to propose a project where this type of algorithm will simply be inexistent. The default display on the home page will be based on the principle of the random playlist guaranteeing an equal rate of visibility for all comics and a real freedom of choice for the readers, allowing authors to create at their own pace without mess up thair health to go up any rankings. This is this fall's priority project. So I will post news regularly and soon to keep you informed of its progress and present you little by little the proposed features. I've opened a development blog (French) for this purpose that I will feed about once a week. It has a suggestion box (French) if you want to ask questions or suggest features.

Péguy (Web application - in dev)

Péguy is a web application that since 2018 allows me to automatically generate certain graphic effects, patterns and scenery elements for my comics. It has brought me a huge gain in productivity.

As it is beginning to take a form that can be used by laymen in programming and mathematics, I will soon put it online. Initially, this will be an early access reserved for patrons. Then, I will propose a small subscription system for non-patrons with a trial period. Naturally, the patrons will keep their access during this second phase. :D

Wizeknight Brotherhood (Online game - in dev)

Wizeknight Brotherhood is an online RPG project with a slightly unusual format. Basically, take World of Warcraft and put a visual novel interface on it, and you'll get an idea of the final result. In this game you will explore the world of Tellura, a Tolkian fantasy world, and conduct quests that will make you conclude 'we are not alone in the universe'. :p In the spring of 2020 I developed a small prototype called A l’Aventure Compagnons which gives a vague idea of the principle.

I am tempted to keep this pencil rendering for Wizeknight Brotherhood.

A l’Aventure Compagnons is playable, just download the client from this page. Don't hesitate to come and pull my ears on Discord if you see that I forgot to switch on the server. :p For the moment the engine of Wizeknight Brotherhood is under development and the first test phases will take place in pure text mode.

This good old scary UNIX console. The MUDs, the ancestors of MMORPGs, looked like this and they still exist with active communities. :D You can find them here.

Rewards

As for the rewards, here again I decided to simplify things so that I could concentrate on the projects I have just listed. The basic reward will give you access to the content I just mentioned. I'm not going to make different levels of access, otherwise I think that some content will have no audience or too little. The higher counterpart levels will give access to HD scans of my artwork. I'm way behind on the old formula's rewards. I'll try to deliver all the promised content in the coming weeks, except for the NSFW illustrations, I might get stuck doing only that. x) That's all for today! Have a nice week and see you soon! :D Suisei

P.S. If you want miss no news and if you haven't already done so, you can subscribe to the newsletter here : https://www.suiseipark.com/User/SubscribeNewsletter/language/english/

Source : https://www.suiseipark.com/News/Entry/id/294/

[ideahat-universe]

Hitting the wall with Youtube

Throughout the years I’ve found ways to circumvent the algorithm and get the youtube videos I want to watch. 

Occasionally purging my history,

installing block extensions

installing element blocks.

Remembering to choose “Not interested” and “not interested in this channel” as well as “Don’t recommend based on me watching X video” 

A lot of little tricks. Most people tell you to like and subscribe to get the content you want to see but that was never needed because as long as you told Youtube what you didn’t like it could only show you what you actually watch. 

That isn’t the case anymore.

Not only do I have to purge my history I have to keep it purged otherwise every video I watch tells Youtube that I want every single video in human history that was like that video. 

Watch one video involving a Hololive youtuber? I guess that means you’re interested in every Hololive video that has ever been made!

Doesn’t matter if it’s one second or the whole video but you thumbed it down. You now want those videos. IN fact. You want those videos more than the actual content you subscribe to!

Back in the day if you didn’t like the sidebar recommendations you could always say you’re not interested or you blocked the videos or the channel in question. At the end of the day you either got content related to the video you were watching or you got something based on your watch history or you got nothing at all. 

Now you basically always get trending videos and popular videos well before anything that’s related to what you were watching or what you like and only blocking works but blocking only goes so far. When you have to block thousands of channels, blocking them one by one is a frustrating task for what is supposed to be a leisure experience. 

Forget about a curated experience where you discover videos based on your interest. You now get recommended whatever! If it has over a million views Youtube will eventually send it your way, doesn’t matter if it has none of your interests. You will get that video eventually and removing it from your recommendations no longer gives you a series of responsive questions. You can basically say you weren’t interested but they’ll still send you a video like it anyways and god help you if something they think you like was uploaded by several hundred different people. 

watch one translated vtuber video. GET every translated vtuber video. 

Wanna watch a nostalgic cartoon video? Be prepared for the recommendation to be complete cancer!

Have a VPN on? Good news! Despite you never watching a video in a language other than English here is a series of videos that aren’t in English with no subtitles either!

Listen to a music video? Here’s every variant of a lofi ambient remix of video game music to chill to, all contained within a mix that has no theme!

Don’t even get me started on all the mainstream content that’s sent my way even though I never watch mainstream content and make a purposeful endeavor to block all of it. 

I’ve had to rip the functionality of the recommendation bars, I’ve turned off all history, and I avoid visiting the recommendation page and only visit my subscription page. 

The end result? There’s nothing to watch on Youtube now! Either I have to let Youtube shovel garbage into my mouth and hope that one or two nice things fall in or I have to shuffle between the two dozen videos that sneak into my recommendations and the five videos that I can only see from my subscriptions. 

I can’t do this anymore. I need the stragglers who refuse to upload to alternative websites to get off the shitter and make the change so I can see new content from them on a better website because I can’t deal with Youtube’s content editorial nonsense anymore. 

Storyfire, Bitchute, Lbry, People keep coming up with bullshit excuses for not going to those sites or worse, they don’t even know they exist. 

How can anymore stomach this terrible service? Youtube is unusable. 

Google will keep Youtube running just to manipulate people. There’s no way the site makes it’s money back but Google wants the control like every other authoritarian psychopath that runs Silicon Valley. 

It’s gotten so bad that Google search is actually shitty now.  

These companies no longer offer the best service, you’re just used to it by now. But it’s time to stop settling and it’s time to watch something new from someplace new. 

Everyone on those sites are waiting for you to show up and upload the stuff that you know gets lost under Youtube’s curated pile. Even I get shown more love on alt websites than the average youtuber and I upload minute long videos dedicated to a single gag. Imagine what someone with talent could accomplish on a new, stable video upload service!

That someone could be you! It should be you. Time’s a wastin’

[forlawfirmsonlymarketing]

YouTube’s Organic Visibility Tops Wikipedia in Google SERPs via @gregjarboe

When Searchmetrics presented Slide #14 in their “2019 SEO Year-End Review” presentation, you could have knocked me over with a feather.

That’s when I discovered that YouTube has steadily (and stealthily) increased its organic visibility in Google’s SERPs over the past two years and recently surpassed Wikipedia for the #1 spot.

Stop the presses! That’s significant information. So, why did Searchmetrics bury their lead? Because they told the story of how the SEO industry changed during 2019 in chronological order. In fact, YouTube reaching #1 was the fourth topic covered in the on-demand version of their webcast. Now, I realize that Google’s core updates on March 12, June 3, and September 24 deserved to be covered in a 2019 SEO year-end review. And so did Google’s BERT update on October 24. But, none of these stories are “new” news to SEOs. Ironically, this meant that the most newsworthy information followed a third section on “industry trends.” But, from a journalist’s perspective, YouTube edging past Wikipedia in organic visibility in Google SERPs is the most important “news you can use” in 2020.

How to Optimize Your Videos for YouTube & Google

Now, to use this news, you’ll need to optimize your videos for YouTube as well as for Google. I’ll tell you how to do that, but it isn’t that simple. First, you need to optimize your videos for YouTube’s algorithm. And, as I mentioned last year in my post, “Why You Must Unlearn What You Know About the YouTube Algorithm,” it’s hard to boil that down when YouTube’s algorithm works one way when videos are brand new and another way when they are more than six weeks old. As a quick recap, optimizing your metadata (the titles, tags, and descriptions for your content) matters less once YouTube has more data on watch time (the amount of time in aggregate that your viewers are watching your videos). Second, you also need to optimize your videos for Google���s universal search algorithm. And, as SEOs know all too well, Google made 3,234 “improvements” to search in 2018 – an average of almost 9 per day. Although most of these changes were minor, Google occasionally rolls out major algorithmic updates (like the three core updates in 2019) that affect search results in more significant ways. But, there is some high-level guidance that I can share with the SEO community.

1. Create Great YouTube Content for Both the YouTube & Google Audiences

The key to success is to create great YouTube content for both YouTube and Google audiences. And, the biggest difference between them isn’t demographic or geographic. It’s psychographic. Your YouTube audience is twice as likely to be early adopters, agreeing that “I am among the first of my friends and colleagues to try new products.” And your YouTube audience is 1.8x more likely to be influencers, agreeing that “people often come to me for advice before making a purchase.” Now, you generally need your primary audience to discover, watch, like, share, and add comments to your video content on YouTube before your secondary audience will see it in a Google SERP. The exceptions to this process are compelling commercials or funny skits on TV that people hear about from their friends, family, or colleagues and then go searching for on Google as well as YouTube. For example, if you analyze YouTube’s list of Top Trending Videos of 2019 (USA), then you’ll quickly see that all but two were uploaded by popular YouTube Creators (aka early adopters and influencers). But, let’s take a closer look at the two exceptions, which also appeared on TV. One is “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be | Gillette (Short Film).” As the video’s description says:

“Bullying. Harassment. Is this the best a man can get? It’s only by challenging ourselves to do more, that we can get closer to our best. To say the right thing, to act the right way. We are taking action at https://gillette.com/en-us/about/the-best-men-can-be Join us.”

Uploaded on January 13, 2019, the video is 1:48 long, and has more than 33 million views and 807,000 “Likes,” making it the fifth most liked video of the year. And, as you can see below, it ranks #1 in Google.

The other is “R. Kelly Interview Cold Open – SNL.” As the video’s description says:

“Gayle King (Leslie Jones) interviews R. Kelly (Kenan Thompson) about the allegations leveled against him.”

Uploaded on March 10, 2019, this 7:36 video has almost 15.9 million views and 233,000 “Likes,” making it the ninth most liked videos of the year. And as you can see below, the YouTube version ranks #1, the version on NBC.com ranks #2, the Facebook version ranks #3, and the Dailymotion version ranks #4 in the Google SERP.

In other words, you need to create great YouTube content or great TV content that is also uploaded to YouTube if you want it to appear in Google’s SERPs. And, although many brands and media companies create TV content, they seem to be afraid or unable to create the kind of great content that popular YouTube Creators, Gillette, and SNL created in 2019. There are other steps that you should take to optimize your videos for YouTube and Google.

2. Create Descriptive & Accurate Metadata & Thumbnails

Now, I don’t need to tell SEOs that YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine, behind only Google. But, did you know they have different algorithms? The goals of YouTube’s search and discovery algorithm are:

“To help viewers find the videos they want to watch, and to maximize long-term viewer engagement and satisfaction.”

So, before or after you’ve created great YouTube content that maximizes viewer engagement and satisfaction, you should:

Conduct Keyword Research

Conduct keyword research to find what your target audiences want to watch on YouTube or discover on Google. I recommend using one or both of the following tools: Google Trends This tool has both Google and YouTube search data going back more than 12 years. This enables you to see if there is existing YouTube search interest as well as Google search interest in the keywords, terms, and phrases that you plan to use to write optimized titles, tags, and descriptions for your video content. And don’t be surprised to discover that search interest trends on YouTube are different than they are on Google. Keyword Tool & Its Sister Keyword Tool for YouTube Both use the autocomplete features on Google as well as YouTube to generate highly relevant long-tail keywords. While there are lots of other keyword tools for Google, you want to identify terms and phrases that will help your videos get found on both YouTube and Google. So, that narrows your list of tool options fairly dramatically.

Use Compelling Titles for Your Videos That Accurately Represent the Content

How do you make a video’s title compelling? Well, ask yourself, “If it showed up in a search, would my target viewer click on it?” Now, basic YouTube SEO advice recommends that you should include relevant keywords in your title. The study by Justin Briggs that I wrote about last year found that this advice was still valid. But, an analysis of text-based targeting came to a more nuanced conclusion. The study, which looked at 3.8 million data points across 100,000 videos and 75,000 channels, found that:

90% of high ranking videos had some had some variant of the keyword in the title. So, exact match keywords help, but they aren’t required.

There is a relationship between title length and ranking performance. Most titles on videos ranking in the top 20 positions averaged around 47-48 characters, with the highest-ranking YouTube videos having titles 20-40 characters long.

Write Detailed Descriptions Using Video SEO Best Practices

The same study by Briggs found that there is a positive relationship between broad match keyword usage in descriptions and ranking. However, with only 75% of top 20 results using some broad match variant in their description text, it was not as essential as including your keyword in your title. But, it is still highly recommended. Briggs also found that a lengthy and more robust description was advantageous, but only to a point. The sweet spot seemed to be between 200 and 350 words. Beyond 350 words, average rank performed worse on average. Now, only the first few sentences of your description will appear in search results or above the fold on a watch page – so make them count!

Use a Comprehensive Number of Related Video Tags

Although Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking, YouTube uses tags to help viewers find the videos they want to watch. And, the YouTube Search and Discovery team says that the influence of tags is variable based on different factors, such as how closely the tags are related to each other on a topic. In the past, YouTube has recommended using the whole 270-character limit. And Briggs found the sweet spot was around 200 to 300 characters. So, it seems that the more data you give YouTube in the keyword tag field, the better a video performs in YouTube search and suggested videos. YouTube also seemed to prefer 2-4 word phrases over many single word phrases when Briggs compared this to the optimal number of unique tags used to achieve the character count. Tag performance was highest between 31 and 40 distinct tags, which may suggest it’s better to target multiple moderate-length keywords than it is to use very short or very long keyword phrases.

Create Thumbnails That Accurately Represent Your Content

Although it doesn’t impact ranking, you should also create thumbnails that accurately represent your content. Thumbnails show up in different sizes and formats all across YouTube and outside of it on Google. You need to make sure you’ve got a strong, vibrant image that pops no matter what size it is. This can encourage a viewer to click on your video even if it’s ranked below another one.

3. Keep Viewers Watching with Video Best Practices

Once viewers have discovered your video, you need to keep them watching it – if you are going to rack up enough watch time to rank well on YouTube as well as appear in Google. This means you need to be an effective editor. Create a compelling opening to your videos to hook viewers right from the start, as well as maintain and build interest throughout the video. To do this, you need to master the storytelling techniques that I wrote about in my October 2018 post entitled, “6 Lessons In Video Storytelling You Can Learn from Indian Brands.” So, how long a story should you tell? Before October 2012, I would have said about 2 to 3 minutes long. But, based on the importance of watch time in YouTube’s ranking algorithm, I now recommend that you create great content that is longer than 4:30, but shorter than 16:00. In fact, the study by Briggs found that “duration,” or how long a YouTube video is, had several surprising impacts on ranking and viewer behavior. He said:

“A lot of creators struggle with how long they should make a video, and this data helps answer that.”

Briggs found viewers tended to like longer, but not too long, videos. For example, the videos that were most effective at converting views into likes were those between 10 and 16 minutes long. Videos less than 5 minutes long tended to get a lower percentage of positive reviews, and videos longer than 16 minutes started to see a decline in engagement. His study also found that short videos were typically rated very poorly. In general, videos less than a minute did very, very poorly concerning positive reviews. Positive sentiment improved with every minute up until about 4 minutes, where it evened out. But, how does duration influence rankings? Briggs found that YouTube’s algorithm seemed to follow the audience. The algorithm appeared to rank videos less than 2 minutes notably worse, but this evened out after about 4 minutes. He also found that a video’s duration helps a lot to drive incremental watch time up until about 4.5 minutes, but it only helps a little after 4.5 minutes. However, it didn’t decline. It continues to rise, so if you’re trying to maximize watch time, do not shy away from 10+ minute videos. Also, there is no decline in sentiment, rank, or views for videos beyond 10 minutes. This point is vital, because watch time is a significant ranking factor. While there is a retention curve associated with video duration which describes how users typically “fall off” throughout a video, longer videos can drive incremental watch time, even if they become less efficient at doing this with each additional minute. In simple terms, a 5-minute video might get more views than a 10-minute video, but the 10-minute video is more likely to accumulate a substantial amount of watch time to make up for that. In the study by Briggs, 10-minute videos had about 15% more watch time than those that were 5 minutes. And Briggs saw 10+ minute videos ranking well in YouTube search. In fact, the average duration of videos that ranked in the top 5 positions was 11 minutes and 44 seconds, and there appeared to be a positive relationship between video length and ranking.

Now, you can’t fix the duration of your existing videos retroactively. So, you’ll need to start creating a higher percentage of longer videos going forward. You should also build your subscriber base. Subscribers are your most loyal fans and will be notified of new videos and playlists to watch. In addition, the study by Briggs found that larger channels with higher subscriber counts also had higher rankings than those with fewer subscribers in their niche. He said:

“There is a positive relationship between subscriber counts and rankings. While this might be a ‘channel authority’ style signal, it’s important to think of subscriptions as a CRM / distribution list. Channels with larger subscriber counts have a useful tool that drives views through browse features, personalized recommendations, and notifications.”

Briggs added:

“It’s also suggestive of an inherent, engaged audience that can seed videos with a baseline level of views from viewers that are prone to have better retention and longer session durations, driving up watch time relative to channels with less brand affinity. It may also be suggestive of a higher likelihood of binge-watching and playlist usage, which can help seed videos with better co-watch data to power video recommendations.”

You should also engage your audience. Online video is an inherently social medium. Involve your audience in your videos, encourage comments, and interact with your viewers as part of the content. In addition, leverage other social media, especially Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

4. Organize & Program Your Content

Build Long Watch-Time Sessions by Organizing Themed Content Using Playlists

ou can use your own videos, other videos, or a combination of both. This not only creates another asset that can appear in YouTube search results and in Suggested Videos, it also increases the watch time of videos on your channel and across YouTube.

Create a Regular Release Schedule and Publish Videos More Frequently

Releasing content frequently on a recurring schedule keeps your audience’s interest and impacts YouTube’s algorithm. This means you need to develop a programming strategy.

If You Can’t Beat Them, Join Them

Although it’s relatively new “news” that YouTube.com has steadily (and stealthily) increased its organic visibility in Google’s SERPs over the past two years and recently surpassed Wikipedia.org for the #1 spot, most of the best practices for video SEO were published almost a year ago. So, why haven’t more SEOs taken advantage of this significant trend? Well, I suspect there are several possible explanations. For starters, YouTube videos started appearing in Google universal search results back in May 2007, but only 500,000 out of the 3 million SEOs in the world mention “video SEO” in their LinkedIn profile today. So, five out of six SEOs around the globe still don’t think video SEO is part of their job. In addition, many organizations put SEO and YouTube marketing in different silos in the org chart and even different locations around the country. So, there is little informal collaboration between the two. Finally, as I mention above, many brands and media companies seem to be afraid or unable to create the kind of great content that popular YouTube Creators, Gillette, and SNL created in 2019. So, let me conclude by giving you another option: Sponsored videos. According to Tubular Labs data, 180,000 brands have sponsored 1.3 million videos in 400,000 campaigns created by 115,000 content partners. In other words, if your organization or client can’t or won’t create the kind of great content that popular YouTube Creators do, then sponsor their next video. For example, Sam’s Club sponsored a video entitled, “Real Life Trick Shots 3 | Dude Perfect.” Uploaded February 25, 2019, this video is 3:42 long, and it has 69.5 million views and 1.5 million “Likes.”

And, as you can see below, it ranks #1 on Google.

In other words, if you can’t beat them, join them. More Resources:

Image Credits In-Post Image: Searchmetrics All screenshots taken by author, December 2019

https://www.businesscreatorplus.com/youtubes-organic-visibility-tops-wikipedia-in-google-serps-via-gregjarboe/

[tefltraininginstitute]

Technology in Language Education Part II - Fad? (with Ray Davila)

The second of our two-part special on technology in the classroom, with Ray Davila, where we discuss the drawbacks of the increasing involvement of technology in education. We talk about what gets neglected instead of technology (where did the budget for those interactive whiteboards come from anyway?!), the effects on how teachers are assessed and evaluated and if technology might eliminate the need to learn a language altogether in the near future…

Technology in Language Education Part II Fad? (with Ray Davila) – Transcript

 Tracy Yu:  Hello, everyone. Welcome back to our podcast. Today, we have the second part of our conversation "Technology in Classroom: Fact or Future in Education." We have Ray...

Ross Thorburn:  Davila. [laughs]

Tracy:  Hi, Ross. Welcome back.

Ray Davila:  Good to be back, guys. [laughs]

Ross Thorburn:  If you hadn't listened to the first part, go back and check out last week's episode where we talked about the advantages of technology in education. This episode, we're going to talk about the disadvantages.

Ross:  I'm going to kick things off and say that one of the biggest problems with technology is just overuse and over‑reliance on it. Just to pick a really simple example is what we called interactive whiteboards.

There's so many things you cannot do on them, you can just do with a traditional whiteboard, and companies that I've worked for, that will remain nameless, invested far more in putting interactive whiteboards in the classroom than putting qualified teachers in the classroom.

Ray:  I'm going to agree with you on this one. It's an over‑reliance on education institutions as well of using technology as a gimmick. There is this lack of this human aspect that I can't miss. One of the things that I remember in the school was there was these moments where you could have technology not working.

The Internet is not working or the printer is not working.

Ray:  I liked to look at those as opportunities. Opportunities where teachers are going into a class, somewhat unplugged, and just trying to find alternatives. A lot of times, I remember a lot of teachers giving feedback and saying that class actually went really well.

Ross:  To go back to what you're saying earlier, Ray, it's almost like some companies try to use technology to teacher‑proof education. It's like, it doesn't matter if you had a good teacher or rubbish teacher, we've got technology, computers, and algorithms. We're going to make sure everyone's going to learn, so we don't really have to worry so much about recruiting good teachers.

Tracy:  If you're talking about your best teacher, everybody have different choices, have a different reason why chose that teacher, and they have their own characteristics.

Ray:  That was something that I had an issue with last week's discussion about the advantages of technology in how you had mentioned the facial recognition. Facial recognition being used in a manner that where you can use it to detect things like the student talking time, even things like their participation in the class, or correct usage of vocabulary or grammar or pronunciation.

Even to the point of as a way of detecting the student's mood and their level of attention. One thing we need to be careful of, making sure that we're not reducing that human element in the learning process to something that's just a mere algorithm. I think that there are other elements to a student than just points on their face to measure their mood.

Tracy:  I totally agree.

Ross:  That's the other danger with that is that if that's what you can measure, then that's the thing that people will pay attention to. It's like the old saying, what gets measured gets managed. Make sure you measure the right thing. Therefore, you can do these measures, student talking time and how often the student smiled, then guess what? The teachers are going to be encouraged to do in class.

Tracy:  These are something supplementary that maybe can help you to find out more information about the learning process, but it shouldn't be the tool to determine if that's a good teacher or that's a bad class. Something like that. That's really dangerous to judge something based on that.

Ross:  Another issue with this is that, with not just facial recognition but with so much stuff being on camera now, I think they're truly going to put people off experimenting in the class and trying things that, maybe this is going to work, maybe this is going to be disaster but hey, who cares? I'll try it.

If everything you do is on camera and can be watched back by parents or students, and used as evidence that you're incompetent, I'm probably just going to stick more to what I've been told to do, or play it safe, rather than try things that would challenge their status quo.

Ross:  What do you guys think about this idea that maybe within a few years' time language learning will be pointless? At the moment, we have pretty good translation stuff. Google, YouTube can do it fairly accurately for free. Subtitles, automatically, you can go from speech to text. You can go from text of another language to text of another language.

For quite a long time, maybe for about 20 years, we've been able to get computers that read stuff out loud. It doesn't seem to be a huge leap from where we are now, to me being able to speak on the phone, just like in "Star Trek," and it comes out in a different language. Can you see that changing language learning?

Just being like, "Why would I spend 10, or 15 years, or 20 years, or just the rest of my life working and learning another language when I can just download an app?"

Ray:  Now, just from the press of a button, we can get everything done, rather than us actually having to put in a lot of work. The work, it's the trial and error. It's the process that really helps with the learning process. If we are eliminating that for convenience' sake, then technology could very well make ESL obsolete.

Tracy:  There are people, probably, difficult for them to learn new language. I'm thinking from my mom's age. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's going to be very challenging for them, and they will say, "What's the point for me? I'm Asian trying so hard learning a new language, but I only use it occasionally."

On the other hand, I'm not sure the accuracy in everything is it really, especially that's something you would like to express? I'm thinking how can the translator 100 percent interpret your feeling, your emotion, and how you'd like to say that in what kind of tone of voice. It's always going to be so different.

For example, English, if you say something, was the tone going up or going down, that's probably means different things in particular context. That's something that would be quite interesting to see if it's going to bring a lot of convenience or a lot of trouble [laughs] for people.

Ross:  What my personal prediction for this is it is going to affect language learning for adults, but I don't think it's going to affect language learning for kids so much. I was thinking about this. Most of the subjects that we learn in school are not very useful, right?

Biology, or physics, or history. You could just google any of those things that you spend all that time at school studying. I think that whatever the point of education at school is, it's often not really that we memorize all this knowledge and we use it in our later lives.

The same is probably true of language learning. It will stay in state schools because for the same reason everything else is there. It's just that it's always been there.

I can see for adults if thinking about I'm not going to spend all this money on a language course to help me in this particular situation? Maybe if I could just download an app. Maybe it's not actually worth it because there is an easier way out.

Ray:  I think for sure that one of the things that happens with new things in innovations in this course of it being developed, this is the new fad. Everyone is talking about tech and how we can utilize it in a bunch of different things.

The problem is, that sometimes we need to sit back and just reflect, analyze its impact overall on the industry, on the students themselves. I think that, again, it goes back into things that are also important in the learning process like social skills, learning how to be a team player. These things are we considering how we're going to implement and teach these soft skills in the process?

Or are we just focusing a lot on how students can win and how we can entertain them? A lot of times we are trying to create new experiences of creating a new reality, a digital reality. I wonder the long‑term effects it might have on how people associate with each other in reality. If we are focusing so much on a digital world, what happens to the real world?

Ross:  The big issue here with technology is not that it's bad but just that where it fits in this so‑called ladder of love. How important is it compared to other things, like human connection, or teacher training, or teaching the right syllabus, or making sure that your syllabus has authentic language or any of those other things?

The danger with all of the things that we've been talking about or we're talking about the previous episode is yeah, overuse, over prioritization. More money and time gets invested in the technology than in any number of other things that we might prioritize over technology.

Ray:  The thing that we haven't really touched about, either in this podcast or in the one before, was is technology and its use with teacher training itself. I wondered, again, especially with older teachers, is some of them are just not as comfortable and confident with technology, and how that's going to play a role in the future.

Will, we just have to sift out all of the teachers who aren't computer literate and competent with technology, or is it going to be something where knowledge in technology is more important than language knowledge?

Ross:  That's an interesting point. I remember watching, when I was a Director of Studies, watching a new teacher. This guy, he must have been 15 years older than me. Watching him with a class of 16 seven‑year‑olds. This guy was trying to turn on and calibrate an interactive live port. It's pandemonium breaking out behind him.

There was one little boy who was trying to tell him what to do. He was like, "Shut up. Sit in your seat." That added nothing to that person's class.

When it comes to any kind of materials, a key principle is to make sure that you're always adding something to everyone's class, and you're never really taking things away. With those things that are difficult to use, you're really just creating more of a burden, some sort of cognitive overload, perhaps, for some, if not a lot of teachers.

Teaching is already multi‑tasking where you're thinking about, "Oh, do I have enough time? Should I end this activity in a few moments? Have I met the aims of this lesson?" All those things.

As soon as you add in some of the clunky technology, perhaps, you're just making the teacher's job even more complicated. Obviously, as soon as you do that, you're distracting the teacher from the other things that they could be doing where it should be helping the students even more.

Ray:  I know a few teachers, then other people who have confessed that they have failed their practical blocks because of technology going awry and it's just...

Ross:  Can I just say, as a former diploma assessor,. I don't think I ever saw anyone fail a class because technology went wrong.

[laughter]

Ray:  I think it's not the technology went wrong, but because they invested so much of their lesson to that, and because it didn't work.

Ross:  That's almost a nice micro cause, isn't it?

[laughter]

Ross:  It's all conversation, Ray, right? Those people made the mistake of investing all of their effort into technology and it didn't do what they expected it to do. Maybe that's the overall danger with the industry. We're in danger of investing too much time and resources into something that might work, but maybe it might not work as well.

Ray:  I think it was Voltaire who once said something that stuck with me. It was, "If you do not accept the changes of your time, perhaps you will miss the greatest part."

I think that, to a certain extent, one of the things that we should be aware of is that technology is happening, whether we like it or not. That development is a part of culture. It's part of society at this point. We might as well just start seeing how we can utilize it and take the advantages, and try to make the best of it.

Tracy:  Thanks very much for listening to these two podcasts. Thanks very much, Ross, on our podcast.

Ray:  Of course. It was my pleasure. [laughs]

Tracy:  See you guys. Bye.

Ross:  Thanks, everyone. Bye‑bye.

[weirdlandtv]

How to get more YouTube views

That’s the perennial question for every YouTuber, isn’t it. How do you find your audience--who is out there, and how do you get their attention? It always strikes me that YouTubers who frequent internet forums with these questions seem totally unaware that they themselves are somebody’s audience, too. They’ve come to think of themselves as “creators”, as separate entities floating in space, woefully out of touch with the people on Earth. What does your audience want to watch? That isn’t the right question to ask. What do you want to watch?

If you’re desperate for viewers, try this: use thumbnails with half-naked girls. Use suggestive, sensationalist clickbait titles: “The day I almost DIED”, “The REAL REASON nobody buys APPLE anymore”, “Russia HACKED me!”, and so forth. Leave your links everywhere, spam people. Clutter your thumbnails with red circles and exclamation points. Congratulations, you’ve attracted 2,000 viewers now and lost all your dignity.

Walt Disney used to say, “Quality always wins”. It’s not entirely true, but as a strategic philosophy, I like it better than the one described above.

I’ve recently set up a second channel, a separate channel, called Humanivideo.

Every day I upload a few classic copyright-free cartoons, usually Popeye or Betty Boop, cartoons that I loved as a kid and that I still rate highly. I could have named the channel Retro Classics Spectacular or Vintage Cartoons Galore Paradiso, but me being me I had to give it a weird, unappealing name of course. The channel art is supposed to be ugly, but, again me being me, I took great care into making it look ugly. Originally Humanivideo was intended to be just a budget channel, a promo tool, a “gateway” of sorts to my real channel, Tales from Weirdland, but again, me being me, I’ve taken on the role of amateur curator and try to present these cartoons well, with nice thumbnails, the best video quality, some handy information in the description box, and more.

And another thing is, by uploading old cartoons to that side channel I can keep up a regular uploading schedule, and thus please YouTube’s algorithms, which are inherently animator-unfriendly as they reward creators who upload often and publish longer videos. (Animation is months of work for minutes of screen time.) In a way, it’s like I’m sending out Popeye and Betty Boop as vedettes every day, as travelling salespersons. “Go and tell people about Tales from Weirdland!” You just have to be a little creative in the marketing department.

The 1939 Popeye cartoon Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (1939) is one I remember very well. Of the three Popeye Color Specials by the Fleischer Studios, that is the one that made the biggest impression on me as a kid. It was actually one of the first things I looked for when I discovered YouTube. There's a wonderful balance between the funny and the creepy, and the music is great and suggestive throughout. I love the vibrant colors, even though they faded somewhat. The backdrops are all little pieces of art, and atmospheric, the sight gags are nifty. “The laaaamp....” “I’m a feesh!” I’m positive that the cartoon helped to shape my artistic character.

Another animated short that I have really fond memories of, is Betty Boop’s Birthday Party (1933). It’s just a wonderful piece of work, with all these rubber hose characters bouncing and swinging, and singing. My grandfather was one of the first people to own a VCR, and this was one of the first cartoons he taped--for me. I watched it endlessly, and even now, many years later, the birthday song occasionally gets stuck in my head. "This is Betty's birthday party daaaaash...." 1933--Marilyn Monroe was 5 years old. The Golden Gate Bridge was being built. And Hitler, well... Look at the birthday cake though: Betty Boop is 14 years old.

I’m always fascinated by the voices in these cartoons. They’re the voices of ghosts. They’re coming to us through old wires, resonate through hollow tubes, their tinkling merriment long gone. You’re listening to the dead, but they themselves don’t know that they are dead.

Betty Boop cartoons were pretty raunchy actually, for their time. Before the Hays Code in 1934 (officially the “Motion Picture Production Code”), which imposed moral restrictions upon motion pictures, it was basically: be as suggestive as you want; you can tease, be naughty, show glimpses of underwear, wink, nudge. This Code lasted until 1968, after which Hollywood degenerated into the Gomorrah that it is now. The Betty Boop cartoons never recovered from the restrictions: in the later cartoons, she’s demure and boring, and most of the stories center around her dog and his wacky shenanigans.

The reason the Code affected Betty Boop cartoons, by the way, is because they were theatrical cartoons: they weren’t shown on television--there was no television--they were shown in theatres, before a main feature or as part of a Saturday matinee. “Many people don’t realize that”, as my brother used to say whenever he had finished some trivia-filled monologue to an uninterested audience.

Above: obvious sexual harassment in the 1932 Betty Boop cartoon, Boop-Oop-a-Doop. “Do you like your job? Hehehe...” In another cartoon, Koko the Clown and Bimbo also join in on the leg rubbing, shamelessly.

So anyway, that’s my Humanivideo channel. It’s my own little Library of Congress. Like Tales from Weirdland, Humanivideo features videos that I’d want to watch myself. That has always been my main interest in doing all this, this YouTube stuff. Perhaps you’ve noticed, non-existing reader, but I never ask viewers to like, subscribe, share, and so forth, i.e. encourage viewers to “take action”, as it’s called in YouTube guides. Broadly speaking, my philosophy is that if I have to remind people to do all those things, something’s not working right.

The only thing I take into account when uploading new videos is: what are the best times to upload? The answer, apparently, is Thursday/Friday in the afternoon, as this gives Google/YouTube the opportunity to process your stuff in time for its busiest hours in the evening. So upload between 12-3 PM when you’re in LA, and between 9-11 PM when you’re in Europe. Saturday is OK too, or Sunday if Saturday isn’t possible. But I’d avoid Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, unless you’re a big YouTube star, in which case it doesn’t matter obviously.

Right.

Currently I’m working on a pretty elaborate, ambitious Star Wars-themed video. Should be good. Anyway, until next time.