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secretgamergirl · 4 years

Text

“What can I do to help?”

As I’m writing this, I’m dealing with a rather astounding amount of vicious harassment which is taking a very serious toll on me. Usually when this is happening, I try not to talk about it publicly, because the sort of people who do this love nothing more than seeing evidence that it’s working, but sometimes, exceptions need to be made. And more to the point, as someone who deals with these sort of attacks as a constant presence in my own life, as well as helping others deal with the same in what is arguably a professional capacity, it seems to me the state of things today is at a point where we need a fresh round of public education on how these sorts of attack play out, and what any given person can do to actually help people deal with them in a meaningful way.

Predators and Herds

As a basic fundamental primer here, I’m going to need everyone to start looking at things from the perspective of a herd animal, because not only is it a pretty clear metaphor for a lot of this, I honestly think this is literally the sort of ancestral memory/instinct that drives this sort of thing. Plus there’s an amusing irony in telling people dealing with these sorts of predatory scumbags that they aren’t acting ENOUGH like sheep.

Some animals are predators. In order to survive, they have to stalk/chase/pin down other animals and kill them in order to eat. Invariably, the animals they target are those that are the most vulnerable. It’s the easiest way to go, and the one with the least risk of anything going wrong. If you’re a hungry wolf, you’re not going to mess with the big beefy ram who can headbutt you and break some ribs, or the really fit sheep you’d have to chase for an hour and still might never catch up with. You’re just going to go for the one with the broken leg, or the little defenseless baby lamb. Those ones you can definitely pick off without much effort at all, and they can’t really fight back in any meaningful way.

Some animals deal with predators by just focusing single-mindedly on defending themselves. If you can outrun the predators, and never let them get the drop on you, or you hide well enough they can’t ever find you, or you know how to really fight back and hurt them badly enough they know not to mess with you, then cool, you aren’t going to get eaten. At least until you let your guard down at the wrong time, or you get injured, or age starts taking its toll. Plus with all of these you’re just living your whole life in this constant state of fear, actively aware that death lurks just around the corner, and you can’t really form any real attachments with anyone else or protect them. It’s no way to live your life, and all of these require you to be able to outperform any predator who comes at you.

The other way to survive with predators wanting you dead is to be part of a herd. If everyone the predators want to prey on are in a big group, there’s inherent safety in numbers there. Not, to be clear, simply because having so many potential meals to choose from means the odds of you being chosen drop. Predators have to weigh the risks now of coordinated defenses. That big tough ram they’d rather not tackle for fear of getting hurt is right there next to that shaky-legged little lamb that would otherwise be the easiest meal to snag there is.

Herds cause a whole lot of headaches for predators, so when they’re a factor, the first step is pretty much always going to be to scatter the herd in some fashion, so all the prey that would be a pain to deal with leave, and the easily picked off targets are left behind to move in on. There’s a lot of ways to do this, and I don’t want to get into too much detail because the metaphor would get too strained, but the real key counter-strategy is to keep the herd from scattering.

Wolves are going to show up, they’re going to show up in packs, they’re going to start snarling and howling and all that, and some sheep are always going to run when that happens, and some sheep aren’t going to be able to. The trick is to have as many sheep as possible stand their ground. If there’s only a couple who do, they’re just going to get picked off along with the ones who can’t run or fight back. But if enough sheep stand their ground to keep those intimidating numbers, nobody’s getting eaten.

There’s our big framework for looking at this, don’t ever let it drop.

How Predators Attack

Now, the next thing to keep in mind here is that people who haven’t been really hit hard by the sort of attacks I’m talking about here tend to be totally clueless about what they actually involve, and even those who have been targeted tend to be really bad at recognizing when other people are being put through the same.

What people imagine to be a “really devastating attack” is when, say, 2000 different twitter accounts all coordinate to hurl violent threats and horrible slurs at a single person over a single one-hour period or something. Don’t get me wrong here. That does happen, regularly, and that’s never a fun thing to deal with, if only because it essentially serves as a DDoS attack, rendering you unable to see any messages from people you want to see things from, but at the end of the day, it does no more harm than having your router go down for a few hours, maybe a day or two in the most extreme cases. It’s also not something that ever really gets sustained in the long term. It’s more like the predators are just holding a pep rally and testing how many accounts they can direct at once.

The really devastating attacks are the effort to drive herds away. They’re a hell of a lot less flashy, generally. They’re hard to point out to others. When really well executed, the target doesn’t even necessarily see anything happening. And what’s happening is elaborately orchestrated character assassination.

I can’t really convey the seriousness of this without some very specific examples. I may follow this up with a roundup of every attack I’ve personally had launched against me, but for now, let me present a very old and famous example, along with the one I’m most recently dealing with.

The classic, of course, from way back in 2014- “Zoe Quinn slept with five guys from various publications in exchange for good reviews of a game.” If this were the first time you encountered this statement, odds are good your personal reaction would be along the lines of “who?” or “who cares?” The goal here isn’t to make everyone hate Zoe Quinn though, just people immediately around Zoe Quinn. The premise of trading favors for good press is something anyone involved in the press is going to take quite seriously, with even baseless claims having an extreme chilling effect. For another crowd, promiscuity is considered a crime worthy of stoning someone to death (and it’s rather telling that the most commonly repeated version of this attack shortens it to simply “Zoe Quinn slept with five guys”). Much more to the point though, the premise that anyone reading this hasn’t previously encountered this line. That message was shouted from the rooftops all over the world for five straight years, over every possible channel.

More recently, I’ve been dealing with... this incoherent mess. This is much less coordinated, with just a handful of people in the think tank, testing every attack live on the fly. You can watch, more or less in real time, as this predator tosses out a variety of defamatory attacks, switching to a new one every time one falls flat. I’m friends with Graham, then I’m business partners, then I’m either paying him or maybe sleeping with him in exchange for promoting some website. I’m a professional journalist (which is a rather weird angle to press as an attack). Then suddenly I’m a “pedophile defender.” A new attack every day.

Now, in both these cases, there’s no truth at all behind any of these attacks. None of these are even stories with two sides to consider. Zoe Quinn’s game was a little choose your own adventure story comprised of a few simple HTML pages linking to each other. No one ever reviewed it to begin with, so the whole thing falls apart. Graham Linehan is a disgusting crusader who attacks children’s charities for daring to provide support to trans children, and quite famously has some weird fixation on publicly attacking me, and I’m a trans woman who hasn’t had any real luck finding work of any kind since coming out half a decade ago. I’ve never run any website that wasn’t a simple blog like this one, or this one which I think puts that last claim to bed well enough.

But again, the idea with attacks like this isn’t to be credible, or even plausible. People don’t make these sorts of attacks based on anything the target has done, it’s all about what will do the most harm if even one person actually buys into it. You want to hurt an indie game dev? Get people to believe they have to bribe people with sex to get any positive mention of their output. You want to hurt a trans woman? Get people to believe she’s friends with and/or sold everyone else out to the king of the transphobes. Someone who does real work to shut down child porn sites? Secretly a pedophile. Etc. Etc. And the success rate of attacks like this is never zero. No matter how transparently false the claim is, shout it at enough people and SOMEONE is going to treat it as ironclad fact, spreading it around in turn and coming off more credible because they’re quoting someone.These rumors spread like wildfire since, let’s be honest, social media sites are all just glorified gossip mills at the end of the day, and all those laughable details from the original lie drop away, replaced with lists of all the very credible people who always know what they’re talking about these scathing claims have been filtered through.

In my experience, honestly it’s the all the most pathetic claims that do the most damage. “Slept with five guys” sticks more than “in exchange for reviews” because it’s such a non-crime that people default to “let’s say that’s true - who even cares?” rather than question the veracity. And I swear all the most damaging attacks I’ve ever suffered really just boil down to baseless claims that I really just don’t like some arbitrary collection of mostly women (a mix of strangers and people I generally view in a positive light).

Having established all of that, we can finally get around to the big question found in the title of this post:

What can I do to help?

Really, the most meaningful and impactful thing you can ever do when someone is being attacked like this is just to do whatever you can to get in front of it. If you know someone has some predator out there trying to convince people she eats puppies, broadcast a big announcement about how that’s happening, along with how and why you’re as confident as you are that she doesn’t, and it’s a baseless hit job. If you have media connections, try to get a story printed about the whole mess, or set up an interview where the victim can talk about how surreal the experience is. If you don’t, just shout about it where you can, so people know not to trust it when word eventually reaches them of all the depraved puppy feasts.

Past that, just be an active support. Tell the alleged puppy eater how you have her back. Ask how she’s holding up. Offer to talk for a bit, or watch a movie. More often than not, attacks like this cost people career contacts and close friends, and cause a lot of trauma. Whatever you can do to help beat the encroaching darkness back helps.

Also? Don’t fall into that trap of granting these sort of BS claims are true to argue the point that they’re stupid reasons to attack someone. They’re always going to be a big deal to someone, and your hypothetical just makes it seem more factual.

Do keep in mind though that these sorts of solidarity moves are going to make the predators real mad. They want to drive you away, and failing that, they’re going to want to take you down too for not running off with the rest of the herd. If we can establish these sorts of defenses as a cultural norm, or you’re personally the sort of person it’s too risky to go after, this is a total non-issue, but if you’re also particularly vulnerable, and nobody else is following suit, be aware of the risks you’re taking.

Finally, make sure you don’t fall into the trap of becoming a predator yourself. So many people get this idea in their heads that the best defense is a good offense, and set out to “turn the tables,” but frankly it just doesn’t work. When you go on the offense, you can’t help but take on those predatory instincts. You end up targeting the most vulnerable people you can find and convince yourself are “the enemy.” I mean that’s almost certainly how the batch of predators you’re trying to fight got started in the first place.

So just... try to be kind. Be supportive. Get out in front of life-ruining rumors. And don’t just do it for people you know and trust. Do it for strangers who are plainly being preyed on. Look for people who just live to tear into people, especially when they keep tearing into the super marginalized. Object to that on principle. And remember anyone can fall into doing it, no matter how long you’ve known and trusted them, or what their politics are.

And some more thoughts on this topic.

#Anti-abuse #advice #stalking #harassment

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atakportal · 6 years

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How Drew Gooden rebuilt his online identity after Vine died

New Post has been published on https://pin.atak.co/how-drew-gooden-rebuilt-his-online-identity-after-vine-died/

How Drew Gooden rebuilt his online identity after Vine died

This post is part of Me, online, Mashable’s ongoing series digging into online identities.

If you’ve ever found yourself mourning the downfall of Vine by binging compilations late at night — because really, who hasn’t? — you’ve probably seen Drew Gooden’s iconic “Road work ahead? I sure hope it does!”

That Vine inspired remixes, parodies, and fan merchandise. But the 24-year-old is ready to work on other projects.

youtube

Like many Vine stars, Gooden’s made the transition to YouTube as a vlogger. Three years after that immensely popular Vine, he’s navigating the world of reaction videos, figuring out his own brand, and trying to move past being known as the Road Work Ahead guy.

The following conversation with Gooden has been edited for length and clarity.

Mashable: You started off on Vine, and now you’re making a name for yourself on YouTube. What was the thought process you went through when YouTube started growing more and Vine kind of just died out?

Drew Gooden: For me, there wasn’t really crossover. A lot of people on Vine used their Vine platform to get big on YouTube. I waited until Vine died and didn’t go to YouTube, and then a few months went by and I was like, OK, I guess I’ll try it. So I had to start from scratch again on YouTube. By the time YouTube was starting to work out, Vine was so far in the rearview mirror. And YouTube has done a lot more than Vine — like I never made money from Vine. YouTube is now like a career. I forget exactly what your question was because I just ramble a lot.

No worries. What was your thought process as you transitioned to YouTube?

When I first started YouTube, I wasn’t doing what I’m doing now. I tried to do what I was doing on Vine: basically little sketches, where I play all the characters, but it would just be longer. I think they’re all pretty funny, but the way YouTube works, people really want to get to know you as a person. And so when I started to incorporate that, but into more sitting down and talking about something and sharing my opinion it felt like that’s when it really started to take off.

Do you think if Vine stuck around for longer, people would make a career out of it?

Not at the rate it was going. There was a peak of Vine where people were making a lot of money — I wasn’t one of those people but I know some of these people were doing these brand deals and these brands were throwing out so much money. There wasn’t a way to figure out if it converted, where YouTube, you get a brand deal and get a link. They click on the link. With Vine it was just like, “Drink Pepsi!” and they had no way to track.

How old were you when you made your infamous “road work ahead” Vine?

I think I was 21. And it was not nearly as big. But that’s one of those Vines that seems to be more popular now than it ever was then, because it’s in all the like, Vine compilations on YouTube. It’s funny, because … [at] VidCon, about one out of three people were like, “Oh, you’re the road work ahead guy!” And they’d want to film me saying the Vine for like, Snapchat or whatever. I was like, “I’ve done other stuff,” but you know.

So you think that got popular because of the Vine compilation videos and not when Vine was still a thing?

I think so. I think it’s also that when people are reminded of it when they see a sign, and maybe they say it to their friend, and then they’ve introduced them. It’s kind of branched out over the years. It was not popular when it came out, but now it’s like my catchphrase. I sell shirts with it on it, because gotta capitalize on it while it lasts.

me: road work ahead?? UHH yea, i sure hope it DOES

my driving instructor, clenching her fists: drew you took your driving test like 8 years ago please get out of my house https://t.co/nESlDxFehJ

— Drew Gooden (@drewisgooden) March 27, 2018

But now it’s three years later, you’ve tweeted about how you’re tired of it and called it a “curse” — can you talk a little about that?

Yeah it was funny. Like, I go back and forth. I compare it to a band that has one really big song, and even though they make a bunch of different songs, they have to close every show for the next ten years with that song. Because that’s what people want! So you have to embrace it, but there’s a part of me that’s like, “Please don’t make me say it again.”

I’d like to separate myself from it, but I have to embrace it, you know? And if that’s how people discover me and if they like my new stuff, then that’s great.

And you sell merch for it, so you’re making money off it.

Right.

It’s hard though — you’re a meme. You become a meme, and people want you to be that.

How have you tried moving past that one Vine, either in your personal life or in your path as a YouTuber?

I guess moving past it is just about doing other things. Doing as many other things as possible. I think there are other Viners who have one thing and then they try to milk it forever, and that’s fine, but they never end up doing anything else. It’s hard though — you’re a meme. You become a meme, and people want you to be that.

Did you ever see that Vine, and he’s like “It is Wednesday, my dudes” and he screams?

Yeah!

I saw him at VidCon and he was wearing the costume from that. He does other things now, he does YouTube and Twitch. But people aren’t gonna recognize him now unless he’s wearing that costume.

youtube

Right. And you’re getting more into vlogging — how has that played into you moving on from Road Work Ahead Guy?

I don’t know. I feel like the more things I do that aren’t centered around that Vine, the more I’m separating myself from it, even though people will always associate that with me. I think it’s something that I can’t do on my own. Like even if I say, “Guys I’m done with that,” people are still gonna see me as the Road Work Ahead guy. There’s almost nothing you can do in separating yourself from something that’s become bigger than yourself.

So much of YouTube is sharing your personal life. You even have a video called “Exploiting My Relationship For Content.”

Ha, yeah.

Do you ever regret having so much out there in the public?

I guess, to an extent. But you go into it knowing that’s going to be part of it. And I think I am able to separate — there’s a lot I don’t have to advertise. I don’t have to say everything about my relationship. Like, I like being able to include my fiancée in stuff because she wants to and people like her. I feel like there’s nothing I’ve put out there that I wasn’t willing to put out there. The only time I do regret it is when I mess up in a video, it’s on the internet forever.

Where do you draw the line between what’s too personal and what’s good for content?

I think I embrace it in that if something embarrassing happens to me, I think that does make for good content to tell the story. Like I’ve pooped my pants before when I was 15, and it’s a really funny story and I could be like, “Oh, I hope no one finds out, or I could just embrace it as a funny story. I think the key is try not to be embarrassed. Where I would draw the line, is like, don’t come to my house.

youtube

You had a pretty scathing review of Jake Paul’s concert.

Right.

What do you think of the identity that the Paul brothers built for themselves, and why do you dislike it so much?

So much of it is built on “We have all this money, and you don’t.” And without acknowledging the fact that the people they’re bragging to are the people who gave them all that money. With Jake and Logan Paul, they’ve done individually, things that are pretty messed up. Logan had the thing with the suicide forest — how would you even think to do that? — and Jake doxxed Post Malone. I think they’re more interested in making content than being good people. It’s so self-promotional, and it’s just kind of gross. I think they’re delusional about the fact their fans are kids.

But at the same time, you have said before that some of your super popular content was bashing on the Paul brothers. How do you feel building your own image off of someone else’s terrible image?

Yeah, that’s where I’m at right now. I’ve been doing that for a little bit now, because it’s easy to grow on YouTube as someone who rants about other things. I do get called out once in a while — like, “You’re making fun of these people, but all you’re doing is making fun of them, so how are you any better?” I try to add as much of my own flavor to it. Also, knowing that I’m not going to do this forever, I want to use this to transition into original, traditional content, not so much like, “And here’s who sucks this week!”

youtube

How would you define your brand, then, as a content creator?

I don’t really know … I feel like so much of it is figuring it out as I go. Whatever works, I’ll just do more. I guess I would describe my YouTube channel as me being the voice of reason amidst all of this weird shit that’s going on on the internet. Like, a couple of videos I made that are really big are about the pointless life hacks that you see on Facebook all the time. I like content like that because there’s not a victim, really. I’m not making fun of a specific person, I could just point at something that everyone thinks is dumb and be like, “Look how dumb it is!”

Do you have a goal set for yourself for moving into traditional content?

When I started before Vine and everything, what I wanted to do was write for a television show. Not a movie, specifically a TV series. Like, I’m a big fan of The Office — I’ve always wanted to write a show like that. So I’d like to, eventually with my platform and my audience, kind of get to a point where I could fund something like that and make something that’s scripted. And [one that] is a story rather than you know, reacting or ranting about something. That’s where I want to get.

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#after #culture #gooden #identity #online #online-identities #rebuilt #vine #web-culture #youtube

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 6 years

Text

How Drew Gooden rebuilt his online identity after Vine died

This post is part of Me, online, Mashable's ongoing series digging into online identities.

If you've ever found yourself mourning the downfall of Vine by binging compilations late at night — because really, who hasn't? — you've probably seen Drew Gooden's iconic "Road work ahead? I sure hope it does!"

That Vine inspired remixes, parodies, and fan merchandise. But the 24-year-old is ready to work on other projects.

youtube

Like many Vine stars, Gooden's made the transition to YouTube as a vlogger. Three years after that immensely popular Vine, he's navigating the world of reaction videos, figuring out his own brand, and trying to move past being known as the Road Work Ahead guy.

The following conversation with Gooden has been edited for length and clarity.

Mashable: You started off on Vine, and now you're making a name for yourself on YouTube. What was the thought process you went through when YouTube started growing more and Vine kind of just died out?

Drew Gooden: For me, there wasn't really crossover. A lot of people on Vine used their Vine platform to get big on YouTube. I waited until Vine died and didn't go to YouTube, and then a few months went by and I was like, OK, I guess I'll try it. So I had to start from scratch again on YouTube. By the time YouTube was starting to work out, Vine was so far in the rearview mirror. And YouTube has done a lot more than Vine — like I never made money from Vine. YouTube is now like a career. I forget exactly what your question was because I just ramble a lot.

No worries. What was your thought process as you transitioned to YouTube?

When I first started YouTube, I wasn't doing what I'm doing now. I tried to do what I was doing on Vine: basically little sketches, where I play all the characters, but it would just be longer. I think they're all pretty funny, but the way YouTube works, people really want to get to know you as a person. And so when I started to incorporate that, but into more sitting down and talking about something and sharing my opinion it felt like that's when it really started to take off.

Do you think if Vine stuck around for longer, people would make a career out of it?

Not at the rate it was going. There was a peak of Vine where people were making a lot of money — I wasn't one of those people but I know some of these people were doing these brand deals and these brands were throwing out so much money. There wasn't a way to figure out if it converted, where YouTube, you get a brand deal and get a link. They click on the link. With Vine it was just like, "Drink Pepsi!" and they had no way to track.

How old were you when you made your infamous "road work ahead" Vine?

I think I was 21. And it was not nearly as big. But that's one of those Vines that seems to be more popular now than it ever was then, because it's in all the like, Vine compilations on YouTube. It's funny, because ... [at] VidCon, about one out of three people were like, "Oh, you're the road work ahead guy!" And they'd want to film me saying the Vine for like, Snapchat or whatever. I was like, "I've done other stuff," but you know.

So you think that got popular because of the Vine compilation videos and not when Vine was still a thing?

I think so. I think it's also that when people are reminded of it when they see a sign, and maybe they say it to their friend, and then they've introduced them. It's kind of branched out over the years. It was not popular when it came out, but now it's like my catchphrase. I sell shirts with it on it, because gotta capitalize on it while it lasts.

me: road work ahead?? UHH yea, i sure hope it DOES my driving instructor, clenching her fists: drew you took your driving test like 8 years ago please get out of my house https://t.co/nESlDxFehJ

— Drew Gooden (@drewisgooden) March 27, 2018

But now it's three years later, you've tweeted about how you're tired of it and called it a "curse" — can you talk a little about that?

Yeah it was funny. Like, I go back and forth. I compare it to a band that has one really big song, and even though they make a bunch of different songs, they have to close every show for the next ten years with that song. Because that's what people want! So you have to embrace it, but there's a part of me that's like, "Please don't make me say it again."

I'd like to separate myself from it, but I have to embrace it, you know? And if that's how people discover me and if they like my new stuff, then that's great.

And you sell merch for it, so you're making money off it.

Right.

How have you tried moving past that one Vine, either in your personal life or in your path as a YouTuber?

I guess moving past it is just about doing other things. Doing as many other things as possible. I think there are other Viners who have one thing and then they try to milk it forever, and that's fine, but they never end up doing anything else. It's hard though — you're a meme. You become a meme, and people want you to be that.

Did you ever see that Vine, and he's like "It is Wednesday, my dudes" and he screams?

Yeah!

I saw him at VidCon and he was wearing the costume from that. He does other things now, he does YouTube and Twitch. But people aren't gonna recognize him now unless he's wearing that costume.

youtube

Right. And you're getting more into vlogging — how has that played into you moving on from Road Work Ahead Guy?

I don't know. I feel like the more things I do that aren't centered around that Vine, the more I'm separating myself from it, even though people will always associate that with me. I think it's something that I can't do on my own. Like even if I say, "Guys I'm done with that," people are still gonna see me as the Road Work Ahead guy. There's almost nothing you can do in separating yourself from something that's become bigger than yourself.

So much of YouTube is sharing your personal life. You even have a video called "Exploiting My Relationship For Content."

Ha, yeah.

Do you ever regret having so much out there in the public?

I guess, to an extent. But you go into it knowing that's going to be part of it. And I think I am able to separate — there's a lot I don't have to advertise. I don't have to say everything about my relationship. Like, I like being able to include my fiancée in stuff because she wants to and people like her. I feel like there's nothing I've put out there that I wasn't willing to put out there. The only time I do regret it is when I mess up in a video, it's on the internet forever.

Where do you draw the line between what's too personal and what's good for content?

I think I embrace it in that if something embarrassing happens to me, I think that does make for good content to tell the story. Like I've pooped my pants before when I was 15, and it's a really funny story and I could be like, "Oh, I hope no one finds out, or I could just embrace it as a funny story. I think the key is try not to be embarrassed. Where I would draw the line, is like, don't come to my house.

youtube

You had a pretty scathing review of Jake Paul's concert.

Right.

What do you think of the identity that the Paul brothers built for themselves, and why do you dislike it so much?

So much of it is built on "We have all this money, and you don't." And without acknowledging the fact that the people they're bragging to are the people who gave them all that money. With Jake and Logan Paul, they've done individually, things that are pretty messed up. Logan had the thing with the suicide forest — how would you even think to do that? — and Jake doxxed Post Malone. I think they're more interested in making content than being good people. It's so self-promotional, and it's just kind of gross. I think they're delusional about the fact their fans are kids.

But at the same time, you have said before that some of your super popular content was bashing on the Paul brothers. How do you feel building your own image off of someone else's terrible image?

Yeah, that's where I'm at right now. I've been doing that for a little bit now, because it's easy to grow on YouTube as someone who rants about other things. I do get called out once in a while — like, "You're making fun of these people, but all you're doing is making fun of them, so how are you any better?" I try to add as much of my own flavor to it. Also, knowing that I'm not going to do this forever, I want to use this to transition into original, traditional content, not so much like, "And here's who sucks this week!"

youtube

How would you define your brand, then, as a content creator?

I don't really know ... I feel like so much of it is figuring it out as I go. Whatever works, I'll just do more. I guess I would describe my YouTube channel as me being the voice of reason amidst all of this weird shit that's going on on the internet. Like, a couple of videos I made that are really big are about the pointless life hacks that you see on Facebook all the time. I like content like that because there's not a victim, really. I'm not making fun of a specific person, I could just point at something that everyone thinks is dumb and be like, "Look how dumb it is!"

Do you have a goal set for yourself for moving into traditional content?

When I started before Vine and everything, what I wanted to do was write for a television show. Not a movie, specifically a TV series. Like, I'm a big fan of The Office — I've always wanted to write a show like that. So I'd like to, eventually with my platform and my audience, kind of get to a point where I could fund something like that and make something that's scripted. And [one that] is a story rather than you know, reacting or ranting about something. That's where I want to get.

WATCH: So, how well do you know your 'Lil' rappers?

#_uuid:a158ff8c-d886-31a1-bdf1-e56b2d0064f4 #_author:Morgan Sung #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_revsp:news.mashable

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foursproutwealth-blog · 6 years

Text

8 Steps to Surviving Workplace Bullying and Salvaging Your Reputation

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/8-steps-to-surviving-workplace-bullying-and-salvaging-your-reputation/

8 Steps to Surviving Workplace Bullying and Salvaging Your Reputation

Stand strong in your values and hold your head high.

Some 29 percent of Americans have experienced workplace bullying or mobbing — 37 percent if we include witnesses — according to 2017 data from the Workplace Bullying Institute, a leading nonprofit. I’ve seen it in my own practice and community. Bullying happens everywhere, and if you haven’t personally become a target, you probably know someone who has.

Despite the growth of workplace bullying, many of us aren’t sure what constitutes bullying/mobbing, as opposed to harassment or workplace discipline. Few know the powerful and liberating truth that we can repair our brand and reputation after workplace bullying. We can restore our confidence, too.

Defining bullying and mobbing.

I define bullying as an inappropriate form and use of power and aggressive behavior that unfairly singles someone out. Bullying serves no purpose other than to demean, strip away confidence or humiliate. Bullying takes place privately or publicly. Workplace mobbing takes bullying to a higher level and includes multiple parties. When a target gets bullied, and a group follows with ridiculing, slandering, undermining and heckling the person, we see mobbing. Not defending the target — during and after the act and if they leave the company — also serves as mobbing behavior.

Related: How to Handle a Boss Who Doesn’t Think Highly of You

As a specialist in managing reputations and personal branding, I routinely hear from clients all over the world seeking help in repairing their brand after becoming a target of extreme bullying or mobbing. Some work for well-known companies. Some are high profile professionals in their community. Sometimes, the bullying against them winds up in the news. In all cases, big and small, and in every region, here are the steps I take to help the targets of workplace bullying repair their precious self-esteem, livelihood and reputation.

Step 1: Separate the emotion from the reputational impact.

When you become the target of bullying or mobbing, you feel everyone around you sees everything. Many of my clients feel like they’re under a microscope and that everyone believes the untruths the bully or mob says about them. To counter this feeling and distinguish any reputational damage, separate the inevitable feelings of shame, self-doubt and lack of confidence from the actual impact to your career. When looking at workplace bullying through a reputational lens, ask yourself, “has this experience impacted my ability to secure desired opportunities? Am I being shortchanged on key opportunities? To me, that’s what reputation is about.”

Step 2: Don’t compromise your work.

If you’re in the thick of the bullying, consider whether to step up your game to avoid getting fired. If you gave 100 percent before, then maybe give 150 percent after. Be sure your work product does not get called into question.

Related: 6 Ways to Keep Things From Getting Worse When Your Boss Starts Yelling at You

At the same time, when coaching clients who have been the targets of workplace bullying, I caution them to ensure they don’t permit any firable offenses to happen. I’ve seen clients, subjected to terrible bullying, want to pull back and do less to “show the employer a thing or two.” But if you then leave the company, you’ve provided the bully/team justified evidence that you weren’t up to par.

Step 3: Have context.

When someone is bullied, and their reputation is damaged, often they’ve not provided an adequate context of their values and goals to help them rebound. Ideally, having a strong personal brand protects us from bullying and mobbing. Being perceived as valuable — and building a strong brand around that — can deflect negativity and help remind our audience that we all make mistakes sometime. We’re human.

Whether your bullying takes place online or in person, focus on what you can influence — your reputation. You’ll feel empowered and deflect the impact on your confidence and brand.

Step 4: Know when to cut your losses.

Hopefully, we learned to stand up to bullies in the schoolyard. Yet, when it comes to our workplace, we believe it can’t actually be happening.

As adults, we must remember that we can’t change another person. We can influence and inspire them, but we shouldn’t set out to change them. One client of mine faced the option of fighting back, staying quiet or leaving after workplace bullying, which lasted a few years. Even though I knew, for him, it felt like quitting; I suggested leaving the company. In his case, the bullying was deep and entrenched in the company culture, and he wasn’t motivated to make it his mission to remove toxicity from that organization. In his case, leaving best protected his happiness, confidence and reputation. I am certainly not saying lie down if you’re a target of a hate crime. In those cases, don’t walk away. Explore legal recourse.

Step 5: Move slowly vs. impulsively.

While you’re in the thick of the bullying, it’s more important than ever that you stand strong in your values, and keep your head held high. Recognize that bullying and mobbing have the potential of becoming quicksand, swallowing up your sense of identity, self-confidence, independence and positive outlook. As with quick sand, sudden movements can pull you further down into the problem. Immediately seek help if you feel a loss of control or purpose.

Related: 7 Ways to Outshine a Tyrannical Boss

Step 6: Resist leaving an industry.

While changing employers may help how others view you, I don’t recommend leaving an industry you love and in which you’ve had a solid, positive experience up until now, unless something life-changing occurs. Not every company in your industry has a bullying culture. If you have established a credible reputation within an industry but experience a negative workplace, changing jobs can be seen favorably. This move shows you are confident enough about yourself and your abilities that you won’t tolerate toxicity. Remember, if an organization’s culture is toxic, you’re probably not the first bullying target.

Step 7: Solicit referrals and endorsements from allies.

To help preserve and rebuild your reputation, ask allies to speak well of you to a new boss/employer/prospect. You may find, if the bullying case reaches the media and becomes public, colleagues reluctant to publicly say the company or boss treated you wrongly. These employees may fear they will become the next target or lose their job. But carefully find allies willing to endorse and protect your brand in other ways — through a phone reference, for instance.

Step 8: Resist retaliating, no matter how tempting.

Revenge can be a natural, human response to becoming a target. Some clients want to go to investors and speak ill of the boss and employer who targeted them. I advise holding back. Revenge does not effectively repair your personal brand and reputation. And in many cases, efforts to tarnish a boss or company will backfire and make you look even worse.

Here’s how you might feel satisfied, less angry and help repair personal brand and confidence:

Write a detailed, unfiltered letter/email to the bully/mob. Purge every angry and resentful idea; however, don’t send it. Instead, put it away someplace. Review in six months and see how you feel.

Avoid Glassdoor. While online review sites could give you the emotional outlet of venting about the bullying behavior you endured, the service becomes entirely misused by individuals making outlandish claims about companies. You might feel vindicated, but more likely, you’ll feel better writing the review, saving as a word document, then, seeing how you feel. Writing anonymous bad reviews about an employer won’t help rebuild your personal brand.

Succeed and rebound. One client of mine lost her public affairs role when her boss and team mobbed her and made up lies about her work to have her fired. Her upbeat personality clashed with the curmudgeon boss who’d missed out on getting promoted. Her experience and skills trumped his and provided a threat. While writing scathing letters to expose the bullying crossed her mind, ultimately, building her own successful business and sharing those successes on social networking sites served her best. The mob noticed each post, and she proved them wrong about her competence.

Hopefully, you will never become subjected to workplace bullying. But if you do, these recommendations will help you plot your next move and ultimately preserve something critical to your career success and personal legacy — your personal brand and reputation.

#Wealth

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foursprout-blog · 6 years

Text

8 Steps to Surviving Workplace Bullying and Salvaging Your Reputation

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/8-steps-to-surviving-workplace-bullying-and-salvaging-your-reputation/

8 Steps to Surviving Workplace Bullying and Salvaging Your Reputation

Stand strong in your values and hold your head high.

Defining bullying and mobbing.

Related: How to Handle a Boss Who Doesn’t Think Highly of You

Step 1: Separate the emotion from the reputational impact.

Step 2: Don’t compromise your work.

Related: 6 Ways to Keep Things From Getting Worse When Your Boss Starts Yelling at You

Step 3: Have context.

Whether your bullying takes place online or in person, focus on what you can influence — your reputation. You’ll feel empowered and deflect the impact on your confidence and brand.

Step 4: Know when to cut your losses.

Hopefully, we learned to stand up to bullies in the schoolyard. Yet, when it comes to our workplace, we believe it can’t actually be happening.

Step 5: Move slowly vs. impulsively.

Related: 7 Ways to Outshine a Tyrannical Boss

Step 6: Resist leaving an industry.

Step 7: Solicit referrals and endorsements from allies.

Step 8: Resist retaliating, no matter how tempting.

Here’s how you might feel satisfied, less angry and help repair personal brand and confidence:

Write a detailed, unfiltered letter/email to the bully/mob. Purge every angry and resentful idea; however, don’t send it. Instead, put it away someplace. Review in six months and see how you feel.

#Wealth

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atakportal · 6 years

Text

How Drew Gooden rebuilt his online identity after Vine died

New Post has been published on https://pin.atak.co/how-drew-gooden-rebuilt-his-online-identity-after-vine-died/

How Drew Gooden rebuilt his online identity after Vine died

This post is part of Me, online, Mashable’s ongoing series digging into online identities.

That Vine inspired remixes, parodies, and fan merchandise. But the 24-year-old is ready to work on other projects.

youtube

The following conversation with Gooden has been edited for length and clarity.

No worries. What was your thought process as you transitioned to YouTube?

Do you think if Vine stuck around for longer, people would make a career out of it?

How old were you when you made your infamous “road work ahead” Vine?

So you think that got popular because of the Vine compilation videos and not when Vine was still a thing?

me: road work ahead?? UHH yea, i sure hope it DOES

my driving instructor, clenching her fists: drew you took your driving test like 8 years ago please get out of my house https://t.co/nESlDxFehJ

— Drew Gooden (@drewisgooden) March 27, 2018

But now it’s three years later, you’ve tweeted about how you’re tired of it and called it a “curse” — can you talk a little about that?

I’d like to separate myself from it, but I have to embrace it, you know? And if that’s how people discover me and if they like my new stuff, then that’s great.

And you sell merch for it, so you’re making money off it.

Right.

It’s hard though — you’re a meme. You become a meme, and people want you to be that.

How have you tried moving past that one Vine, either in your personal life or in your path as a YouTuber?

Did you ever see that Vine, and he’s like “It is Wednesday, my dudes” and he screams?

Yeah!

I saw him at VidCon and he was wearing the costume from that. He does other things now, he does YouTube and Twitch. But people aren’t gonna recognize him now unless he’s wearing that costume.

youtube

Right. And you’re getting more into vlogging — how has that played into you moving on from Road Work Ahead Guy?

So much of YouTube is sharing your personal life. You even have a video called “Exploiting My Relationship For Content.”

Ha, yeah.

Do you ever regret having so much out there in the public?

Where do you draw the line between what’s too personal and what’s good for content?

youtube

You had a pretty scathing review of Jake Paul’s concert.

Right.

What do you think of the identity that the Paul brothers built for themselves, and why do you dislike it so much?

But at the same time, you have said before that some of your super popular content was bashing on the Paul brothers. How do you feel building your own image off of someone else’s terrible image?

youtube

How would you define your brand, then, as a content creator?

Do you have a goal set for yourself for moving into traditional content?

#after #culture #gooden #identity #online #online-identities #rebuilt #vine #web-culture #youtube

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