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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 month

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Why Millennials aren’t leaving Tiktok

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW NIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and more!

The news that Gen Z users have abandoned Tiktok in such numbers that the median Tiktoker is a Millennial (or someone even older) prompted commentators to dunk on Tiktok as uncool by dint of having lost its youthful sheen:

https://www.garbageday.email/p/tiktok-millennials-turns

But "why are Gen Z kids leaving Tiktok?" is the wrong question. The right question is, why aren't Millennials leaving Tiktok? After all, we are living through the enshittocene, the great enshittening, in which every platform gets monotonically, irreversibly worse over time, and Tiktok is no exception:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

To understand why older users are stuck to Tiktok, we need to start with why younger users relentlessly seek out new platforms. To some extent, it's just down to youth's appetite for novelty, but that's only part of the story. To really understand why people come to – and leave – platforms, you have to understand switching costs.

"Switching costs" is the economists' term for everything you have to give up when you change products or services. Switching from Ios to Android probably means giving up a bunch of your apps and purchased media. Switching from an airline where you're a high-status frequent flier to another carrier means giving up on free checked bags and early boarding.

In an open market, rivals have lots of ways to lower these switching costs (it's an open secret that you can call an airline and say, "Hi, I'm a 33rd Order Mason on American Airlines, will you make me a Triple Platinum Diamond Sky-Baron if I switch to Delta?"). Of course, big incumbents hate this, and do everything they can to increase their switching costs, finding ways to impose high switching costs that punish disloyal consumers who have the temerity to go elsewhere.

With social media, lock-in comes for free, thanks to the "collective action problem." Getting people to agree on a given course of action is hard, and as you add more people to the picture, the problem gets harder. It's hard enough to get half a dozen people in your group-chat to agree on where to go for dinner or what board-game to play. But once you're reliant on a social media service to stay in touch with friends, relatives around the world, customers, communities (say, rare disease support groups), and coordination (like organizing your kid's little league car-pool), the problem becomes nearly insoluble. Maybe you can convince your overseas relatives to switch to a Signal group, but can you do the same for your small business's customers, or your old high-school pals?

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/29/how-to-leave-dying-social-media-platforms/

Taken together, switching costs and collective action problems make platforms "sticky," and sticky platforms inevitably enshittify.

Platforms, after all, generate value. They connect end-users with each other (say, little league parents) and they connect end-users to business customers (you and your small business's customers). That value needs to be parceled out among end users, business customers, and the platform's shareholders. A platform can make life better for business customers at its end users' expense by increasing the number of ads (hello, Youtube!), and it can make life better for its shareholders at its business customers' expense by decreasing the share of ad revenue given to publishers or performers (oh, hello again, Youtube!).

From a platform's perspective, the ideal state is one in which end users and business customers get no value from the platform, because it's all being captured by the platform's shareholders. But if Youtube interrupted every 30 seconds of video for ten minutes of ads and paid the video creators nothing, both users and creators would ditch the platform – and advertisers would follow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dab8sKg8Ko8

So platforms seek an equilibrium: "what is the least value we apportion to end-users and business customers without triggering their departure?" Maybe that means giving more value to end-users (for example, keeping Uber fares low by suppressing wages), or to business-customers (crowding more ads into your social media feed).

Every business – including brick-and-mortar, non-digitized ones – wants to find some kind of equilibrium between the value going to its suppliers, its customers and its owners, but digital businesses have an advantage here: digital systems are flexible in ways that analog, hard-goods businesses are not. Digital businesses can alter pricing, payouts and other dynamics from moment to moment – second to second – and make a different offer to every supplier and customer. They have a bunch of knobs, and they can twiddle them at will:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Well, not quite at will. Businesses face constraints on their twiddling. If they get too greedy, users or business customers might weigh the cost of staying against the switching costs and decide it's not worth it. But the more expensive – the more painful – a platform can make leaving, the more pain they can inflict on the people who stay.

In other words, there's two ways to keep a customer or supplier's business: you can make a better service so they won't want to leave, or you can make leaving the service so painful that they stay even if you mistreat them.

There's three ways a digital company can make things worse for their customers and users without losing their business.

First, they can eliminate competition (think of Mark Zuckerberg buying Instagram to recapture the users who'd fled Facebook to escape his poor management):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

Second, they can capture their regulators and avoid punishment for trampling their suppliers' or users' legal rights (think of how Amazon has raised the price of everything we buy, both on- and off Amazon, through its "most favored nation" deals):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Third, they can use IP law to prevent competitors from modifying their services to claw back some of that value (think of how Apple used legal threats to block an Android version of Imessage, blocking Apple customers from having private conversations that included non-Apple customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Companies can't just use this tricks at will, of course. Antitrust laws can block companies from making anticompetitve acquisitions or mergers. Regulators can punish companies for cheating their customers, workers and users. Technologists can come up with clever ways of modding or reconfiguring existing services with "interoperable" add-ons that let users bargain for better treatment by refusing to accept worse:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

Day in, day out, the decision-makers at tech companies test these constraints, twisting the knobs that shift value away from users to shareholders. Their bosses and boards motivate them with "KPIs" that dangle the promise of huge bonuses and promotions for any manager who successfully enshittifies part of the company's products:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Decades of pro-corporate, pro-monopoly policy has loosened those knobs. 40 years of lax antitrust meant that companies had a lot of leeway to buy or merge with rivals – that's changing today, but it's tough sledding:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

As sectors grew more concentrated, they found it easier to capture their regulators, so that they no longer fear punishment for price-gouging, spying, or wage-theft, so applying the same amount of torque to the "break the law" knob cranks it a lot further:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Once you've captured your regulators, you can aim them at your competitors. A monopoly-friendly policy environment has transformed IP law into a bully's charter, allowing powerful companies to strangle would-be competitors who dare to offer their customers tools to shield themselves from enshittification, like scrapers, ad-blockers and alternative clients. Big companies can crank the enshittification knob all the way over and know that smaller rivals knobs won't turn at all:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

At one point, bosses faced one more constraint on knob-twiddling: their workforce. Many tech workers genuinely cared about their users' welfare, something bosses encouraged as a sneaky trick to get techies to put in long hours without exercising their leverage by quitting rather than destroying their lives to meet arbitrary deadlines. These workers would fearlessly slap their bosses' hands when they reached for the enshittification knob, threatening to quit rather than allowing the products they'd given so much for to be enshittified. Today, after hundreds of thousands of tech layoffs, tech workers are far less like to challenge their bosses' right to twiddle, and far more likely to get fired if they try:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/10/the-proletarianization-of-tech-workers/

All this means that tech bosses don't have to change their approach at all, and yet, their services will grow steadily worse. The boss who twiddles the enshittification knob in exactly the same way as he did a year or a decade ago will find it turning much further, because his customers are locked into his platform, his regulators won't protect them, the same regulators will stop his competitors' attempts at countertwiddling, and his workers fear losing their jobs too much to speak up for their users.

That's the contagion that produced the enshittocene: the forces that constrained companies (competition, regulation, self-help and labor – all melted away, allowing every company's MBA-poisoned knob-twiddling leaders to shamelessly caress their knobs with every hour that God sends:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

Which is why people want to leave platforms. When a platform loses its users, those users have weighed the switching costs against the pain of staying and decided that it's better to bear those costs than to stay.

So why have Tiktok's younger users found the costs too high to bear, and why have their elders remained stuck to the platform?

For that, we have to look at the unique characteristics of young people – characteristics that transcend the lazy cliche that kids are easily bored, fickle novelty-seekers who hop from one service to another with unquenchable restlessness.

Whether or not kids are novelty-seekers, they are, fundamentally, a disfavored minority. They want to do things that the platforms don't want them to do – like converse without being overheard by authority figures, including their parents and their schools (also: cops and future employers, though kids may not be thinking about them as much).

In other words, kids pay intrinsically lower switching costs than adults, because a platform will always do less for them than it will for grownups. This is a characteristic kids share with other supposedly technophilic, novelty-seeking "early adopters," from sex-workers to terrorists, from sexual minorities to trolls, from political dissidents to fascists. For those groups, the cost of mastering a new technology and assembling a community around it is always more likely to be worth bearing than it would be for people who are well-served by existing tools:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/21/early-adopters/#sex-tech

Pornographers didn't jump on home video because of its superiority as a medium for capturing flesh-tones. Home video was a good porn medium because it was easier to discreetly get into the hands of porn consumers, who could, in turn, discreetly view it. The audience for porn in the privacy of your living room is larger than the audience for porn that you can only watch if you're willing to be seen marching into a dirty movie theater.

Every new technology is popularized by a mix of disfavored groups and neophiles, who normalize and refine it – and yes, infuse it with their countercultural coolth – until it becomes easy enough to use to become mainstream. As more normies drift into the new system, the switching costs associated with leaving the old system declines. It gets easier and easier to find the people and services you want in the new realm, and harder and harder to find them in the old one.

This is why tech platforms have historically experienced sudden collapse: the platform that gets more valuable and harder to leave as it accumulates users gets less valuable and easier to leave as users depart:

https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2022/12/05/what-if-failure-is-the-plan.html

If you're a Gen Z kid on Tiktok, you experience the same enshittification as your Millennial elders. But you also experience an additional cost to staying: as late-arriving adult authority figures become more fluent in the platform, they are more able to observe your use of it, and punish you for conduct that you used to get away with.

And if you're a Millennial who isn't leaving Tiktok, it's not just that you experience the same enshittification as those departing Gen Z kids – you also face higher switching costs if you go. The older you get, the more complex your social connections grow. A Gen Z kid in middle school doesn't have to worry about losing touch with their high-school buddies if they switch platforms (they haven't gone to high school yet – and they see their middle school friends in person all the time, giving them a side-channel to share information about who's leaving Tiktok and where they're headed to next). Middle-schoolers don't have to worry about coordinating little league car-pools or losing access to a rare disease support group.

In other words: younger people leave old platforms earlier because they have more to gain by leaving; and older people leave old platforms later because they have more to lose by leaving.

This is why Facebook is filled with Boomers. Yes, their kids bolted for the exits to avoid having their parents (or grandparents) wading into their sexual, social and professional lives. But the reason the Boomers were late joining younger users' Facebook exodus – or the reason they never joined it – is that they stand to lose more by going. Facebook deliberately cultivated this dynamic, for example, by creating a photo hosting service designed to entice users into uploading their family photos while disguising how hard it would be to take those photos with them if they left:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

The irony here is that tech has intrinsically low switching costs. All other things being equal, a new platform can always build a bridge to ease the passage of users from the old one. There's no (technical) reason that moving to Mastodon, or Bluesky, or any other platform should mean cutting ties with the people who stayed behind.

A combination of voluntary interoperability (where old platforms offer APIs to allow new services to connect with them), mandatory interop (where governments force tech companies to offer APIs) and adversarial interop (where new companies hack together their own API with reverse-engineering, scraping, bots, and other guerrilla tactics) would hypothetically allow users to hop between networks as easily as you change phone carriers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/19/better-failure/#let-my-tweeters-go

Tech platforms tend to offer APIs when they're getting started (to ease the inward passage of new users) then shut them down after they attain dominance (locking the door behind those users). The EU is tinkering with mandatory APIs through the Digital Markets Act (though bafflingly, they're starting with encrypted messaging rather than social media). Restoring adversarial interoperability will require extensive legal reform, which is getting started through Right to Repair laws:

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/13/oregon-passes-right-to-repair-law-apple-lobbied-to-kill/

The people who are stranded on social media platforms shouldn't be mistaken for uncool, aging technophobes. They're not stubborn, they're stranded. Like the elders who can't afford to leave a dying town after the factory shuts down and the young people move away, these people are locked in. They need help evacuating – a place to go and a path to get there.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/21/involuntary-die-hards/#evacuate-the-platformsr

#pluralistic

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thatlittleegyptologist · 1 year

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Hell-o guy, gals, and non binary pals, this is your Cabin Crew Leader Thoth speaking! Welcome aboard this Flight of the Dead with Mwt Airlines! Thank you for your attention while I go through some important safety information for you!

In preparation for departure, be certain that your mummy is laid flat and your canopic jars are stowed. Make sure that your carry-on offerings are placed completely under the coffin in front of you. Portable shabtis are not approved for use inflight, however, you may use protective amulets when advised by your crew. Please direct your attention to Ammit in the cabin. For everyone’s safety, Osiris’ regulations require your compliance with all hieroglyphic signs and invocations, or Ammit is allowed to eat you before we serve inflight pA.t cake.

Please review the ‘How Not to Get Your Heart Eaten’ card in the seat pocket in front of you. It explains what a heart scarab is as well as the favourite bribe gifts of all the 42 Assessors of Maat. Your sarcophagus serves as an approved flotation device. To use it, pull up and take it with you to the nearest usable exit. After exiting the flight, place your arms through the straps and then hug coffin lid to your chest. As the flight attendants are pointing out, there are exits here, here and, here (Ammit at this point twists in classic ‘Walk like an Egyptian’ poses to demonstrate this).

Take a moment to locate the exit nearest you keeping in mind that the closest usable exit may be located behind you. If there is a loss of this flight’s divine power, don’t worry; you’re already dead so oxygen isn’t needed where you’re going! As a reminder, smoking is not permitted in any area of the aircraft because all of you are covered in very flammable materials. We don’t want a repeat of Tutankhamun do we! Finally, we ask you not to distract the duatlings with knives on the wings. If you upset a creature who’s dual wielding knives that is on you.

On behalf of Anubis, the incorporeal embodiment of Ma’at and your entire crew, it is our pleasure to have you aboard.

Enjoy your flight to Aaru!

#Please use caution when opening the overhead compartments and removing items #since someone’s organs may have shifted during flight.#god I'm so sorry I've no idea what possessed me to even write this #(tutankhamun thing is in reference to the time someone thought his body spontaneously combusted. He didn't but y'know)

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menitrust · 5 months

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Upcoming shows in 2024, looking forward <3

tix: https://menitrust.tumblr.com/

03/31 Tecate Pal Norte 2024, Monterrey, Mexico 04/02 Auditorio BB, Mexico City, Mexico 04/04 Guanamor Teatro Studio, Guadalajara, Mexico 05/05 Shaky Knees Festival 2024, Atlanta, GA 05/10 Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, WA* 05/12 Oakland Arena, Oakland, CA* 05/14 Acrisure Arena, Palm Desert, CA* 05/15 Kia Forum, Inglewood, CA* 05/17 MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, NV* 05/18 Delta Center, Salt Lake City, UT* 05/21 Ball Arena, Denver, CO* 05/23 Toyota Center, Houston, TX* 05/24 Moody Center ATX, Austin, TX* 05/25 American Airlines Center, Dallas, TX* 05/30 Parc Olympique, Montreal, QC

*Supporting for Melanie Martinez

#Emma Men I Trust #Men I Trust #Emma

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ceasarslegion · 2 months

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Why do passengers act like karens in the security line like what do they expect is gonna happen

Theyre out here going off about how theyre paying customers as if the fine print of their ticket receipt doesnt say "if security kicks you out then it sucks to suck <3"

Yeah youre a paying customer of the airline but i dont give a shit about you lmao. If youre acting like a shithead here youre gonna be worse in an enclosed space that you cant escape for multiple hours. The airline does not decide if you fly or not buddy they just take your money and supply the plane. If i pull out a weird electronic ive never seen before and ask you completely nonjudgementally what it is and what it does and you go "I DONT KNOW WHAT DOES IT DO MORON???" how do you think im going to respond. In my job to screen for bombs. Think this through pal. Do you want to try that again

#work tales #every day i deal with passengers

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aviaposter · 6 months

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Boeing 777-300ER Philippine Airlines

Registration: RP-C7778 Type: 777-3F6ER Engines: 2 × GE GE90-115B Serial Number: 61730 First flight: Nov 7, 2016

Philippine Airlines is the flag carrier of the Philippines. Headquartered at the PNB Financial Center in Pasay. Philippine Airlines was founded on February 26, 1941 and is the first and oldest commercial airline in Asia operating under its original name. Following the 1997 Asian financial crisis, PAL dropped some of its long-haul flights. In 2013, Philippine Airlines resumed its flights to Europe, including Amsterdam, London, Madrid, Paris, and Rome. Currently Philippine Airlines operates 43 international routes and 31 domestic routes. The airline's main flight operations are located at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Metro Manila. The Philippine Airlines fleet composed of wide-body and narrow-body aircraft from Airbus and its flagship, Boeing 777-300ER.

Poster for Aviators. aviaposter.com

#aviationart #boeing #boeing777 #airliners #aircraft #paxex #avgeek

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alto-tenure · 1 year

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so a while ago I made a list of how every victim falls in Ace Attorney to determine the most common cause of death. this includes assaults/attempted murders (e.g. Edgeworth being attacked in The Kidnapped Turnabout, DGS1-4, DGS2-2, LV-1)

TL;DR: Stabbing is the most common, followed by gunshot and blunt force trauma.

the dissection is under the cut; spoilers for every game

STABBING: 20

Jack Hammer (Turnabout Samurai)

Bruce Goodman (Rise from the Ashes)

Neil Marshall (Rise from the Ashes)

Terry Fawles (Turnabout Beginnings)

Misty Fey (Bridge to the Turnabout)

Rex Kyubi (The Monstrous Turnabout)

Constance Courte (Turnabout Academy)

Clay Terran (The Cosmic Turnabout)

Metis Cykes (Turnabout for Tomorrow)

Manov Mistree (The Magical Turnabout)

Tahrust Inmee (Rite of Turnabout)

Inga Karkhuul Khura’in (Turnabout Revolution)

Byrne Faraday (Turnabout Reminiscence)

Manny Coachen (Turnabout Ablaze)

Horace Knightley (The Imprisoned Turnabout)

Mason Milverton (The Adventure of the Runaway Room)

Olive Green (The Adventure of the Clouded Kokoro)

Jezaille Brett/Asa Shinn (The Adventure of the Blossoming Attorney)

Odie Asman (The Return of the Great Departed Soul)

Klint van Zieks (The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo)

GUNSHOT: 19

Robert Hammond (Turnabout Goodbyes)

Gregory Edgeworth (Turnabout Goodbyes)

Manfred von Karma (Turnabout Goodbyes)

Turner Grey (Reunion, and Turnabout)

Pal Meraktis (Turnabout Corner)

Romein Letouse (Turnabout Serenade)

Thalassa Gramarye (Turnabout Succession)

Dhurke Sahdmadhi (Turnabout Revolution)

Buddy Faith (Turnabout Visitor)

Colin Devorae/Oliver Deacon (The Kidnapped Turnabout)

Mack Rell (Turnabout Reminiscence)

Deid Mann (Turnabout Reminiscence)

Shi-Long Lang (Turnabout Ablaze)

Ethan Rooke (Turnabout Target)

Di-Jun Huang (The Grand Turnabout

John Wilson (The Adventure of the Great Departure)

Pop Windibank (The Adventure of the Unspeakable Story)

Herlock Sholmes (The Adventure of the Unspeakable Story)

Tobias Gregson (Twisted Karma and His Last Bow)

Genshin Asogi (The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo)

BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA: 15

Cindy Stone (The First Turnabout)

Mia Fey (Turnabout Sisters)

Phoenix Wright (The Lost Turnabout)

Russel Berry (Turnabout Big Top)

Kane Bullard (The Stolen Turnabout)

Zak Gramarye (Turnabout Trump)

Paht Rohl (The Foreign Turnabout)

Archie Buff (Turnabout Revolution)

Dumas Gloomsbury (Turnabout Time Traveler)

Miles Edgeworth (The Kidnapped Turnabout)

Ka-Shi Nou (Turnabout Ablaze)

Isaac Dover (The Inherited Turnabout)

Jill Crane (The Forgotten Turnabout)

Jack Cameron (The Grand Turnabout)

Kazuma Asogi (The Adventure of the Speckled Band)

Olivia Aldente (The English Turnabout, PLVPW)

FIRE: 6

Robbs (PLVPW)

Muggs (PLVPW)

Kira (PLVPW)

Maya Fey (PLVPW)

Arthur Cantabella (PLVPW)

Jove Justice (Turnabout Revolution)

POISON: 5

Glen Elg (Recipe for Turnabout)

Diego Armando (Turnabout Beginnings?)

Drew Misham (Turnabout Succession)

William Shamspeare (The Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro)

Newton Belduke (PLVPW)

FALLING: 3

Dustin Prince (The Lost Turnabout)

Akbey Hicks (Turnabout Airlines)

Jack Shipley (Turnabout Reclaimed)

ELECTROCUTION: 3

Maya Fey (Turnabout Goodbyes)

Phoenix Wright (Turnabout Goodbyes)

Doug Swallow (Turnabout Memories)

CAR ACCIDENT: 3

Selina Sprocket (Turnabout Time Traveler)

Sorin Sprocket (Turnabout Time Traveler)

Carmine Accidenti (PLVPW)

SUFFOCATION: 2

Juan Corrida (Farewell, My Turnabout)

Taifu Toneido (Turnabout Storyteller)

EXPLOSION: 2

Candice Arme (Turnabout Countdown)

Apollo Justice (Turnabout Countdown)

CRUSHED: 1

Di-Jun Huang’s Body Double (The Grand Turnabout)

TRANSFORMATION: 1

Hershel Layton (PLVPW)

OTHER NOTES:

I honestly thought blunt force trauma would be the highest when I first listed these. I was wrong!

I know (MAJOR PLVPW SPOILERS) that no one in PLVPW actually died except Newton Belduke, but I still felt as though it was prudent to list them here as victims.

Tasing is a form of electrocution.

Technically, falling and getting crushed could both be forms of blunt force trauma, but “blunt force trauma” is more “something hits you” than “you hit something” imo? I think it’s a distinction worth making.

There are a lot fewer poisonings than I thought. I didn’t know whether to put Diego’s poisoning under Memories or Beginnings, so I put both.

Simon Keyes was pretty inventive tbh

English Turnabout is the only case in PLVPW with a proper name. I generally ID the chapters with court segments as the ones that are the “case names”, which works for every case but the last.

I might have missed some? I know for sure I missed the original Di-Jun Huang, but I couldn’t find his cause of death poking around the wiki. Let me know if I missed any more!

#ace attorney #cw death #tw death #plvpw #aa5 spoilers #aa6 spoilers #aai spoilers #aai2 spoilers #dgs2 spoilers #plvpw spoilers #meta #whoops this took me way longer than i thought it would whooooops

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pcgamer · 2 months

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youtube

Watch This Insane Landing At General Santos Airport - Philippine Airline...

#youtube #general santos #general santos airport #landing #airport #philippines #pal #philippine airlines #watch this #msfs 2020 #watch this insane landing #b777 #b777-300er #aircraft #airlines

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japanzilla · 8 months

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Title: Flying High with Pikachu: The Pikachu Plane Takes Japan by Storm

Introduction: When it comes to combining cuteness and creativity, Japan never fails to amaze the world. From colorful anime characters to quirky inventions, Japan has a way of making the ordinary extraordinary. In recent years, the Land of the Rising Sun has taken its love for adorable characters to new heights with the introduction of the Pikachu Plane. This whimsical aircraft has captured the hearts of locals and tourists alike, soaring through the skies and spreading joy wherever it goes. In this blog, we'll explore the fascinating world of the Pikachu Plane and delve into the reasons behind its immense popularity.

The Birth of a Pika-phenomenon: The Pikachu Plane was born out of a collaboration between The Pokémon Company and All Nippon Airways (ANA), one of Japan's largest airlines. In 2018, ANA unveiled its first Pokémon-themed aircraft, featuring none other than the iconic electric-type Pokémon, Pikachu. The vibrant yellow exterior adorned with Pikachu's cheerful face immediately caught the attention of both Pokémon enthusiasts and aviation enthusiasts from around the globe.

Flying Pikachu Experience: Boarding the Pikachu Plane is an experience like no other. Passengers are greeted by flight attendants wearing Pikachu-themed accessories and uniforms, creating a delightful atmosphere from the moment they step on board. The interior of the plane is also adorned with Pikachu-themed decorations, including headrest covers, tray tables, and even safety cards featuring Pikachu and its Pokémon pals.

During the flight, passengers are treated to a truly immersive Pokémon experience. Pikachu-themed snacks and beverages are served, ensuring that the excitement continues even at 30,000 feet in the air. The in-flight entertainment system offers a selection of Pokémon movies, TV shows, and games, allowing passengers to dive deeper into the enchanting world of Pokémon during their journey.

Pikachu Parade: But the magic of the Pikachu Plane doesn't end when it lands. At select airports, passengers are welcomed by a special Pikachu Parade, where a group of people dressed in Pikachu costumes dances and interacts with travelers, creating a joyful spectacle that is hard to forget. The parade is a testament to the incredible impact Pokémon has had on popular culture, bringing people of all ages together through their shared love for these adorable creatures.

Beyond Borders: The Pikachu Plane has not only captured the hearts of those who have had the opportunity to fly on it; it has also become an iconic symbol of Japan's pop culture and creativity. The plane's eye-catching design has garnered attention worldwide, making it a popular subject for social media posts and travel blogs. Tourists from different corners of the globe now flock to Japan with hopes of catching a glimpse of this charming aircraft and experiencing the joy it embodies.

Conclusion: The Pikachu Plane is a testament to the magical fusion of imagination and innovation that Japan is renowned for. Through this collaboration between ANA and The Pokémon Company, travelers are treated to an unforgettable journey where they can immerse themselves in the world of Pokémon. From the moment passengers step on board until the plane touches down, the Pikachu Plane offers an experience that is brimming with joy, laughter, and the undeniable appeal of Pikachu and its Pokémon friends. In a world where travel has become more about the destination than the journey, the Pikachu Plane reminds us that the magic of exploration lies not only in the places we visit but also in the experiences we create along the way. So, buckle up and get ready to embark on a whimsical adventure through the skies with Pikachu as your guide!

#Japan #Japanese plane #Pokemon #pikachu

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tiessainwonderland · 1 year

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Southern Discomfort

I had this notion that states like Kentucky and Tennessee and Georgia and Alabama would be filled with slow-talking, solicitous Southern Gentlemen who still held doors open for women and said things like yes ma’am and no ma’am. Then I went to Nashville.

Now, I freely admit that I’m about to make a mass generalization based on interactions had in one of the highest pressure environments you can find yourself in, but I’ve traveled quite a bit at this point and to date, I have NEVER…EVER…witnessed the level of childish tantrum throwing and straight-up rudeness that I experienced in Nashville in the last 24 hours. I’m gobsmacked.

I’m going out on a limb and guessing that even when y’all are on vacation, the airport part is never your favorite. All the TSA rules and the airline rules and the taking off and putting on of articles of clothing and accessories, the occasional pat-down (or if you’re really lucky, a strip search), delays, and gate changes all just ratchet up the anxiety while you’re just tryna get out of Dodge. When it’s travel you’re doing for work, or worse, because of some sort of unfortunate personal circumstances (sickness, death in the family, etc.), it’s almost unbearable. But there is never a reason to use any of those things as your personal justification to become a complete Ogre. Buckle up because these situations all really happened, and they were all FULLY GROWN ADULT MEN.

Man 1, who we’ll call Albert, stood in line behind me at the rental car counter for around 15-20 minutes grumbling to everyone around him about the airport-wide shortage of cars available. When I got to the front of the line and was waiting to be called next, Albert shuffled himself and his luggage around me and walked up to the counter in front of me, like I wasn’t even standing there. He stood talking to the woman behind the counter for a few moments in hushed tones the rest of us couldn’t hear, and then finally she said, “It’s still going to be two hours.” He huffed and turned around and as he walked away he said, “Fine, I’ll just come back.” As he walked past me, I said to him, “Cool, are you gonna cut in line again then too??” He stopped and looked at me like he couldn’t believe a human with a lady brain had dared speak to him like that, and said, “I didn’t cut, I’ve been waiting.” I said, “As have all of the people you see around you.” Smh.

The next dude, who we’ll call Bob, had been on my flight from DFW to Nashville and had been talking SO UNNECESSARILY LOUD ON HIS PHONE both before we took off and immediately after we landed, like he was negotiating some terrorists down from launching missiles or something. It was loud and dramatic and hyperbolic and entirely for the benefit of anyone within earshot so we’d all see how cool he was. So Bob showed up in the Rental Car Garage right after me, and walked up to me and asked if I was standing in line for a car. I said yep and faced back forward. That’s when Bob posted up RIGHT. BEHIND ME. and proceeded to make another loud crazy phone call.

This time he was telling the other person how many Senators (pronounced “Sen-dors”) he had in his pocket and they need to change the law “up there” because people are gonna start dyin! He kept talking about his rank (Bob’s in the military, y’all, like WHOA), everyone else in the situation’s rank, the guy he was on the phone with’s rank, etc. While he’s having this loud, profanity-laden conversation, he keeps periodically SPITTING ONTO THE GROUND RIGHT NEXT TO MY BAGS/FEET. This happened at least 3-5 times. I turned and gave him filthy enraged looks every time and he. did. not. care. When I was finally up at the window talking to the Garage Attendant, Bob spit again, and that time the Attendant girl heard it and made a face, and she was inside a booth!!! FOUL. Meanwhile, Bob kept telling his phone pal about the GD SHORTAGE OF GD RENTAL CARS AT THIS GD AIRPORT…calm down Bob.

Speaking of calming down, after I’d given my phone number to the Attendant girl so they could call me when my car became available (est. 30-45 min, actual 90 min), I went around behind her little booth looking for more benches to sit on so I didn’t have to sit with Bob or any other potential Bobs. I found a couple of baby car seats and an airport wheelchair that had been abandoned behind the booth, so I posted up in the wheelchair where it was quiet and untainted by toxic masculinity, and made some phone calls.

Halfway through my second call catching up with my friend Rach, I kept getting distracted by Man #3, who we’re going to call “Jack”. Jack was a tall dude in his mid-60’s who was wearing skinny jeans with some ZeroGrand oxfords and a cashmere sweater, walking up and down the rows of cars and yelling about how many cars there were just sitting there ready to go and all of us had been waiting for hours. He kept doing this and then would go to the Express Assign Area, which was manned by two kids in their 20’s, where he’d loudly and forcefully harangue them with questions about why we were having to wait if there were all these cars. Meanwhile, the kids had to keep stopping what they were doing to interact with Jack until he’d inevitably shake his head and turn and swagger back towards where all of us were waiting with his arms spread wide like, “I’m tryna help fix it guys, but they don’t want to, sorry.” Ugh.

By the third time Jack went to walk his rounds, I had reached my limit of BS that I was willing to overlook for one day from all these dudes. As he started his swagger back towards all of us, HE LIT UP A CIGAR and started smoking it there in the garage around all of us. Wut?????

So as he walked past where I was and was still hollering about alllllllll the cars, I finally turned and said, “Would you calm down?” He stopped and backed up and looked at me with his head turned sideways. I love how SHOCKED these dudes get when a woman actually calls them out. Like bro, you may have hit your wife until she stopped back talking you, but I’m not your wife, son. So he says, “Excyooooze me?” I said, “I SAID, would you please calm down?…everyone here is waiting patiently, no one needs you out here with your chest puffed out and your cigar smoke trying to intimidate kids a third your age who are just trying to do their job.” He said, “You don’t even know what you’re talking about, all those cars are gassed up and ready to go, there’s no reason for us to be sitting here waiting.” I said, “Then by all means, go get in one and git so we don’t have to listen to you anymore, but they’re just following what they’re being told to do.” He said something about he didn’t understand why my “fat ass” felt the need to get involved, so I said, “Sir I can lose weight but you’ll always be a dick with a horrible personality.” He walked off and kept smoking his cigar. I hope he gets lip cancer.

Then today, I’m back at the airport standing at the ticketing desk waiting for the gate agent to finish with the two people in front of me so I can ask if there’s a spot on the flight they’re boarding that I can snag. Man #4, who I’ll call “Frank” comes up and stands not so much behind me as he is beside me. I looked at him like what are you doing, get in line, so he asked, “Are you in line to ask about this flight?” I said, “Yep.”

Ticketing Agents finish with the two people in front of me and Frank freaking side-steps RIGHT ON AROUND IN FRONT OF ME and says to the agents, “Are there any free seats left on that flight??”

Um excuse me sir? Did you just walk in front of me and attempt to take the last empty seat away from me????? Yes, yes he did!!

Fortunately for him, the agent told him the flight was closed and he scurried off to ruin someone else’s day. The agent got me on the next flight out and I went and sat down. As I was sitting there, I couldn’t stop thinking about these men who literally just walked right over me like I wasn’t even there, fully intending to take whatever I might have been about to get.

What’s happening right now that this is how people treat each other??? What kind of absolute douche do you have to be to have so little concern or regard for anyone around you that you will all but push them out of your way to take what’s theirs?

Like I said, it’s a fairly gross generalization, but I can say that I’ve not seen anything like this in Texas in the last 5 years I’ve been traveling heavily.

Nashville, what’s the deal???

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