#i should be working on my seminar work form history this is literally more text than I have written for that so far | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bittysvalentines · 4 years

Text

Would That I

From: @lizards-online

To: @pieandpucks

Sometimes in life, things are missed. Opportunities are lost, but as a whole we cannot stop moving. Still, something feels left behind, dropped in a time before. We keep going, with something lost and something gained, until life gives us our chance again,to take destiny’s chance to reconnect and find what is lost.

At Samwell University resided one Dr. Jack Zimmermann, a professor of history with an affinity for ice sports and queer literature. His smile was kind and his hair was just beginning to hint at touches of grey. He was a hard grader, and his readings were long, but his passion for teaching and his love of his students always showed through in his work. Students left his classes better thinkers, harder workers, and with only the smallest crush on him. Okay sometimes, not so small. Even the straightest of men recognized that Dr.Jack Zimmermann was a resident hottie. Rumor had it that he was voted “Samwell’s Most Gorgeous” four years straight back in the day.

Jack shuffled a few papers at his podium so as to get them in order before the end of his lecture. “Everyone, thank you for your attention today, just remember if you want to earn some extra credit points, you can attend one of the alumni guest lectures that will be on campus this weekend, and then write a one page response on the speaker’s topic and your thoughts. I’ll be popping in to a couple of the speakers myself, so if you see me, don’t be afraid to say hello.”

Jack began walking across the front of the classroom, dispersing flyers advertising the Alumni Symposium to be passed back.

A student in the back of the room raised her hand, staring down at the flyer in her hand “Dr. Zimmermann, when did you graduate Samwell?”

Jack paused for a moment. “2015. Why?”

“Well, I was just looking at the graduation year of some of these alumni, and it says here Eric Bittle Graduated in 2017. So that means you were only two years ahead of Eric Bittle when he went here!”

The class erupted in murmurs and comments. Eric Bittle was one of Samwell’s most famous alumni. He led Samwell to the Frozen Four his senior year, while being the first out NCAA hockey captain, was drafted by the Falconers and was the first openly LGBT+ player in the league. He won the Stanley Cup his rookie year (first of many) along with the Calder and Art Ross. Even outside of hockey he was famous for his witty vlog which evolved from a cooking vlog to a hockey, cooking and life blog with now over 18 million followers from all walks of life.

Jack swallowed hard. Yes, it was true, his time at Samwell and Eric Bittle’s time did overlap by two years, and in fact, during those two years, he ran into Eric all the time. They were...friends. Shitty made sure of that. Jack would watch the hockey team’s games, not only to support Shitty, but to watch Eric weave and maneuver across the ice unlike anyone else. Even though Jack had decided against playing in college, he never did lose his love of the game. Meanwhile Eric would hover about the library doing anything but homework when Jack was working. Plus, the semester they took a class together was definitely a bonding experience. But it had been a long time since they had spoken. After Jack graduated, he felt too awkward reaching out to someone who he had a massive crush on but was WAY out of his league. And when one month turned into two, and then one year turned into five, and five years into a decade, Jack had trouble remembering where all the time had gone.

“Hah. Uh, yes he was two years younger than me. We had a class together once.” Jack decided firmly against mentioning his large crush on the blond to his entire History 336 Seminar.

The students in the room all lamented about how cool it was that their professor knew a celebrity.

Jack closed the door to his office and scrubbed his hand over his face and let out a sigh. Would it be awkward to see Eric again? Would Eric even remember him? Probably not. It was just a youthful crush. Even if Eric was still as attractive and charming and wonderful as he was back in the day, Jack was far past his prime. He could just not go to that lecture, but he felt drawn to it, as if something wanted him to see Eric speak. Jack picked up his phone and dialed the most recent number. It picked up on the first ring.

“What the FUCK is up Zimmermann, to what do I owe the pleasure of one of your rare and coveted calls? Are you in legal trouble? Did you kill someone? Did you kick a goose and now you’re losing your Canadian citizenship?” Shitty was Jack’s best friend. He was boisterous and energetic but genuine nonetheless. His words washed over Jack with a wave of excitement and familiarity.

“Haha Shits. I’m good. And no, no geese, at least not this time. I was just wondering, would you want to come down to Samwell this weekend? There’s an alumni symposium going on, and I think you’d enjoy the speakers.”

“Ah ha old Jackabelle misses me. Of fuckin course I’ll come down to the symposium, but I’ll warn ya man I’m not gonna sit through more than ONE old white man talk. ONE. Who's the lineup anyway?”

“I can forward you the flyer but just off the top of my head: there's the current head of the English department, Dr. Masawa, she’s gonna be talking about her book, um Dr. Atley is going to present some research, and um, Eric Bittle is going to be there.”

“Bitty fucking Bittle? The myth, the man, the legend himself? Well fuck my ass and call me chicken we HAVE to go to that. It’s been like FOREVER since I’ve seen Bits. What a fucking beaut. We texted a bit last month but it's been like a year and some since I last got to hang with him. You know he’s got a daughter now?”

“Oh. Uh, no?” A daughter. Jack’s head spinned. He knew he didn’t have a chance with Eric but he didn’t realize that Eric had gotten married and had a kid. That would’ve been big news right? Was Jack really that out of the loop? He needed to read the news more.

“Yeah she’s fuckin adorable as fuck. Like, two, three now maybe? He posts pictures of her on Facebook like all the time.”

“That’s uh pretty cool. Listen Shits, I have to go I have a, uh, book to read. I’ll see you this weekend. You can stay at my place. Text you bye.”

“Bye Jac-” Jack hung up the phone before Shitty could fully say goodbye. Why did he feel like there was a pit in his stomach? He didn’t care that Eric Bittle was a married father. So what? It’s not like he had a chance with him anyway. What would he have done? Gone up to him after his speech and say “Hello, I had a crush on you in college, and then we never talked after I graduated. Want to go on a date?” Even if Jack had had the confidence to do so, it was literally impossible now because Eric was a married father, a professional hockey player, celebrity, and an A Level hottie. All Jack had was a doctorate, a wall of books and a million papers to grade. He wasn’t even in the shape he had been in when he was in college, so really, he didn’t have anything to offer. Jack should just shut out all the fantasies of those big brown eyes, and golden hair, and gorgeous toned legs. Gosh what was he doing?

Jack crossed the room and slumped into his chair behind his desk and picked up a stack of papers sitting on a chair beside the desk. The best way to distract himself was to drown in work.

Eric Bittle woke up at 6 a.m. Saturday morning to the sound of his daughter crying. He was tired and sore from his game the night before, and a bruise was starting to form on his left thigh due to a nasty check from a Bruins defenceman but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.

Eric threw off his sheets and rushed into his daughter’s room. Allie was just about two and a half years old, and was in the midst of potty training. Unfortunately for him, Eric was also in the middle of the thralls of hockey season so a lot of the potty training fell on her daycare teachers. Being a single parent was tough. When his cousin Elizabeth had passed away, leaving her and her partner’s daughter to him, he had no idea what to do. He had been five years into his professional hockey career, out, single and totally unprepared for the hurdles of parenthood.

He pushed open the door to the nursery to find his daughter sitting upright whimpering. “Oh you poor thing. Looks like we’re going to have to get you changed real quick now aren’t we Miss Allie?”

Eric brought her to the changing table and cleaned her and dressed her for the day. It was a little earlier in the morning than he had planned, but he needed to get a move on to get to Samwell in time for his guest lecture. Eric had reached out to his old advisor and she recommended him an education major who would be glad to watch his daughter while he spoke and mingled, not wanting to be away from her for the entirety of his day off. He dressed her in cute bunny socks and a yellow shirt and white pants. She was just about the cutest thing in the world. Soon Eric himself got dressed, packed a diaper bag and headed out.

On his way Eric’s thoughts winded through his head. It had been quite some time since he’d been back to his alma mater. Samwell had been such an influential and formative place for him. From developing his hockey skills to coming into his own as a gay man. And even though he never did have a long lasting romantic relationship, the friendships he made there pushed him through his life and helped him become who he was. Thinking back to some of the people, he thought about the boys, Lardo, some of the other team captains, and his mind landed on one Jack Zimmermann.

Eric had always had such a massive crush on Jack, with his boyband bangs, his droopy eyes, jaw that could cut glass and a behind that would give greek statues a run for their money. Eric had first met Jack through Shitty, but then subsequently kept running into him in the dining hall, gym and then one semester for a class. Jack would come to their games and Eric would watch him stack books in the campus library while he pretended to do homework, but always ended up back at the circulation desk, talking about everything and nothing until it closed. They had been friends, and Eric had had the largest crush on earth on the sad-eyed Canadian. But Jack was way out of Eric’s league. He had been voted Samwell’s Most Beautiful for four years straight, and suitors were constantly trying to ask him out. And then Jack graduated, leaving Bitty yearning for what could have been. According to Shitty, Jack was a professor at Samwell, but the two hadn’t really kept in contact. After the fact, there had been some boys, some boyfriends, even some hookups, but nothing lasting more than a few months at a time. At 30 years old Eric Bittle had never been in a relationship longer than 9 months.

The sight of Samwell pulled Eric out of his thoughts and Eric shook his head. He had things to do, and he wasn’t going to let ghosts from the past distract him from his job today: to speak about Samwell, sports, and his activism.

Jack entered the packed auditorium with Shitty in tow. He smiled and waved to a few of his students while Shitty was speaking as if he was a physical manifestation of stream of consciousness. They took their seats in the front row reserved for faculty, staff and alumni.

“I wonder what he’s gonna talk about. I hope he brings up all the swawesome shit the SMH did. Like that one kegster when-”

“Wait Shits shhh there he is” Jack cut Shitty off.

Eric Bittle walked onto the stage with a mic affixed to his shirt. He wore tight fitting navy blue slacks that highlighted just how well the NHL had bulked him up. His top two shirt buttons were unbuttoned on his white and navy blue patterned shirt. The sleeves were rolled up ¾ of the way showing off the definition in his arms. Jack’s throat immediately went dry with his face getting more red as the moments ticked on.

Fuck. Eric Bittle was even hotter than he remembered and was a million times more attractive in person than he had been in promotional pictures. And his voice, the accent was so cute! Keep it together Zimmermann, that’s a married man. Jack was going to have a hard time sitting through this entire speech.

Fuck. Eric walked on stage, scanning the audience and almost immediately his eyes landed on one Jack Zimmermann. He was wearing a tweed jacket, with glasses and his hair was just a touch grey. Time had been very kind to Jack. Eric’s throat became dry as he stumbled his way through his introduction. Shit Jack was in the front row. How was Eric going to concentrate when the hottest man in the world was right in front of him, watching him speak for an hour and a half.

Clapping. Jack was clapping. He zoned back in after having not actually comprehended a single word for the past 90 minutes. He had just sat and stared at the most gorgeous man he had ever seen and tried not to get a boner. Shitty was speaking to him. Jack needed to respond.

“Yeah. He does look good in those pants” Shit. Probably not what Shitty asked him.

“Not what I was talking about, but yeah you know what now that you mention it, mother fucker looks fresh as fuck! I gotta fuckin tell him those pants are doing it for him.” Shitty bolstered himself out of his chair, and up the steps and onto the stage where some faculty were gathering to congratulate him on his speech. Jack followed.

“Eric Mother fucking Bittle” Shitty bellowed as he walked, Jack close behind, to where Eric stood, now holding a young baby girl on his hip as he spoke with alumni and faculty alike.

Eric turned to face the two men and smiled. “Shitty B. Knight you best not be swearing around my daughter like that. And Jack, it’s good to see you. It’s been awhile.”

“Fuck yeah it has been. You two were adorable back in the day. You should’ve kept touch more!” Shitty laughed.

Jack smiled awkwardly. “Yeah it has been a bit hasn’t it? I’m sorry I never kept touch. Congrats on the hockey, and the Stanley Cup, and the marriage and uh, kid.”

Eric’s face twisted into a confused half smile. “Marriage? Jack Zimmermann I am not married. I was her godfather. Life happened and now I’m her Daddy.” Eric looked at her, and kissed her forehead softly.

Jack’s brain short circuited. Not...married? “Oh so are you…”

“No I’m not seeing anyone. I’m doing quite fine with her all by myself.” Eric blushed.

“Okay I see where this is going, I’m gonna back out of this convo..” Shitty etched away from the two men. The latter hardly noticing.

Jack awkwardly ran a hand through his hair. “In all honesty, Eric, remember all those years ago, when we went to Samwell together. I had the biggest crush on you, but you were so out of league I never did anything about it. I should have, but I was a bit of a coward.”

Eric’s face turned a bright shade of pink as he stammered out a response. “Jack Laurent Zimmermann! You had a crush on me back then? I’ll have you know I pined for you for two whole years thinking you were straight until someone told me YEARS later that you weren’t, and then when I did realize you were an option, I never thought in a million years that you would be in my league anyway. You’re meaning to tell me you had a crush on me that entire time?”

Jack blushed furiously. “We both had crushes on eachother I guess. I’m sorry I never made a move on you back then. If it means anything, I’d like to uh make one now.”

“Well how about our timing. Gladly Jack. Here, ” Eric pulled out his phone with one hand, careful not to disturb Allie, and handed it over to Jack. “ text me.”

Jack put his number into the phone and texted himself. “In the meantime, would you like to catch up? It’s been a long time.”

Unbeknownst to the two men, several students stood by in shock, watching their professor flirt with and score a date with a literal celebrity. Two in the front high fived. “Get it Dr. Zimmermann!”

#bittyjack #bv2020 #bitty's valentines #omgcp fandom #omg check please!

61 notes · View notes

samwise-though · 5 years

Text

Sabrina’s Top Ten

This is a little bit (a lot bit) out of my blog’s wheelhouse, but I ask you guys to bear with me! For one of my seminars, I have to do a Top Ten project, in which I talk about ten different things relating to Pop culture, music and/or theory. So, if you don’t want to read this, that’s fine! I’m putting the bulk of the post under the cut!! This is basically just me commenting on how weird pop culture is, and fangirling about Taylor Swift.

(Sorry Dr. Burke, you’re absolutely going to have to read about Taylor Swift, and I am realizing that after Adorno I’m incredibly cynical about popular culture now)

#1: Taylor Swift: Archive, Collecting and Identity

I think as I began this year, there was this feeling of necessity to blast off with the song “22” from @taylorswift’s album Red. All the way back in 2012 little fifteen-year-old Sabrina knew that when she turned 22, she would be playing that song All. Day. Long.

youtube

Here’s the thing though: while yes, I did listen to “22” more than any of the other songs on Red that day, I also spent a lot of time listening to the rest of the album as well. I came to the realization that I could identify with the album better than ever. There was something so profound about the way @taylorswift captured that moment in time, in her life, and have it still remain so relatable. I spent a long time considering this, but it wasn’t until I encountered Jean Baudrillard’s The System of Objects that I really began to find a way in which to understand what was happening for me (and undoubtedly many others, considering Swift’s success). In chapter two: “A Marginal System: Collecting” Baudrillard references Maurice Rheims’ ideas of collecting for children, “For children, collecting is a rudimentary way of mastering the outside world, of arranging, classifying and manipulating”. Ultimately, collecting is a way in which we learn to form identity - and what is an album, if not literally a collection of music that in and of itself acts as an ultimate tool of identity construction? I’ve been listening to @taylorswift’s music since her official 2006 debut. That is a lot of time spent self-identifying with a musician and her music. Constructing even part of your identity from something that is a collection that is very much a large part of someone else’s identity is such a weird concept. Why do we do that?

Even more interesting though, is the fact that Taylor has said on multiple occasions, that her albums are like diary entries (not to mention the great number of other people drawing that particular comparison). Thus making each album that she has released up until this point a small archive, collecting and ordering that point in time. Either way, @taylorswift continues to find success in creating archival collections that are reflective or refractive of her own identity.

With the release of Lover and the inclusion of her diary entries as an addition to the deluxe versions of the record, it follows in the history of including controlled snippets of her life in the physical copies of her albums. From the first five albums, she included secret coded messages within the lyrics of each of the songs. In 1989, Taylor included copies of polaroids with lyrics written across the bottom of them, each numbered - so you knew you got certain ones, and not others. As well, starting from 1989 @taylorswift has also included voice memo recordings from her writing and recording sessions, so that fans can have a better understanding of her creative process.

All of these details add to the personal feeling that @taylorswift‘s albums seem to emanate. This feeling is only magnified through the additions of the diary entries in Lover (deluxe). Each album is a carefully constructed archive of @taylorswift‘s life, that her fans then go on to add to their own ‘Taylor Swift collections’ and continue to alter their identities through the new piece of the collection that she has created.

#2: The Reproducibility of Childhood

If there is anything in recent memory that should be considered with Benjamin and mass-reproducibility in mind, Disney and the company’s capitalizing on re-making all of their old animated films should be discussed.

They did this really clever marketing tactic in which they pretty much re-do the original trailer they released for the original movie, shot-for-shot with the new film footage:

youtube

I will admit it didn’t work quite as well with the 2015 version of Cinderella, in which they altered a greater amount of the story, as compared to The Beauty and the Beast. Obviously, the trailer that has found the most success thus far with this tactic, was the most recent release of The Lion King.

What is the most intriguing thing is that Disney is embracing the past iterations of the movie, basically just repackaging the old story in (for most of the movies) live-action acting rather than animation and selling the audience very nearly the same exact thing. And not only are they very blatantly reselling the masses the same thing, but they are also saying, with these side-by-side trailer comparisons that “hey, look, we're doing this thing exactly the same way” and without question, we buy into it because it is familiar and feels of childhood. Having read Adorno’s Culture Industry Reconsidered, I feel as though we should really be taking a moment to question why we are allowing Disney to amass so much capital from movies that we have already seen. By drawing on our cultural memory of these movies that were so fundamental to many children in Western society growing up, Disney is literally monetizing our childhood memories. It is just as Adorno says, “The culture industry fuses the old and familiar into a new quality.”

While these movies get a shiny new paint job, it is still blatantly the old and familiar.

But I guess Disney has always been about capitalizing on memory.

#3: The ‘Classics’ and Aura

I have spent a lot of time over the past year, shaping my identity. I made a lot of life-changing decisions, one of which was to go to grad school. It was not a quick decision, and it more or less happened over the span of a year, during an English course I took. The class was a lecture on Victorian and Edwardian literature. I found myself really fascinated by the Victorian novels that we started the class with. When we got to Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles I was a goner.

I fell in love with Hardy’s story and my love for the Victorian and 19th-century studies only solidified further throughout the semester. However, my entire experience at the university has been plagued with serious imposter syndrome. Thoughts of how “I don’t belong here,” and that “I don’t really know what I am talking about” were the soundtrack playing in my head every single day. I was always worrying that I had grossly misunderstood the texts we were studying, my interpretations were wrong, and that I would make myself look like a fool. All of these feelings, when analyzed at a later time, were all rooted in the idea that we were studying ”The Classics,” narratives that were part of the Western Literature Canon. How could I possibly understand literature that was considered “Great”?

There is a constructed aura around the literary canon that is also extended to the place in which that canon is taught. A very elitist feeling that has been cultivated since the beginning of higher education. For me, when making the decision to continue my university education by taking the leap to apply for Grad schools, this aura only grew - to the point in which it almost feels that it will be impossible for me to get into a graduate program. It feels as though Graduate programs are meant for a specific group of people - and somehow I am evaluating myself to not fit into that group.

But what exactly is it that still continues to be such a fundamental influence over the population that University is considered elite, and those narratives should be the ones to makeup Western Literary Canon? Is the legacy of Colonialism still so etched into our ideas that we literally still believe that the novels that a bunch of white dudes agreed were good are the be-all-and-end-all of good literature?

What’s bothersome about this is, I didn’t get to start asking those sorts of questions, and experiencing a wider array of literature until I reached my upper-level seminar courses, for my honours degree.

Courses that you cannot take unless you are a part of the honours program.

Ironic isn’t it? The elitist aura can only be questioned from well within the elitist institution.

#4: The Avengers: [Streaming]Game

Marvel’s first cycle has now come to an end with Avengers: Endgame. It’s odd to think just how emotionally attached the fans (myself included) have become to the superheroes that, many of which will not be returning after this installment in the Avengers franchise.

(Loki Gif included because bae deserved better - and a TV show that I have to pay for absolutely does not make up for it)

Marvel is now going to capitalize on certain character deaths (see above), by giving them TV series and prequel movies to help entice the masses that have been so invested in their stories up to this point in the cinematic universe. The problem is, though, any character receiving a show, it will only be aired on the Disney + streaming service.

The Disney + streaming service comes long after Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and other streaming services have already established themselves. The issue that arises out of this system of individual streaming platforms, is that subscribers have to either subscribe to every new platform that arises or else to pick an choose which content they are willing to not have access to. It's a ridiculous system, and it will make it nearly impossible to have conversations with those around you because it should be a safe assumption at this point - ad if not now, certainly in the near future, that no, they probably haven’t watched it, because they don’t have access to it.

This is obviously just a new way to control the products that companies produce. But it also brings to mind Benjamin and his ideas regarding mass production (”Work of Art”). Has the aura of the film been diminished because of the sort of re-producibility that come out of easy access (watching it any time you want), or, has there been a new mutated aura created for these films and tv shows because of the lack of access people may have to multiple platforms?

I guess we got what we wanted, easier way to access the tv shows and the movies we love, but at the cost of having to choose where we are willing to spend our money. It's a very Adornian thought, in that we wanted something, it was produced to the best possible economic value for the companies creating them, and then we continue to buy into the product.

#5: Sparknotes and Memes

If you have a twitter account, and like literature, you should really check out SparkNotes’ twitter account.

They have become more and more popular over the last few years due to their use of the relatable internet language we know as memes. They, of course, are not the first company to engage with their users in such a way, many companies have been using social media to brand themselves in a very personable (and personified) way.

By doing this, they are making themselves appear more accessible to today’s youth, who are primarily influenced by what they see and interact with on the internet.

There is something less sinister about SparkNotes utilizing the internet and memes to direct themselves to the younger audience - they are after all an educational aid group in which they are providing texts in more manageable and understandable terms.

Other companies, however, like fast-food restaurants who utilize social media as though they are an individual rather than a company... That is quite a bit more insidious.

#6: Concert Movies

I want to return to music once again. But not in the traditional sense. I want to discuss concert movies.

youtube

There is something so weird about concert movies! They seem to exist in a separate space from actually attending a concert with live music and listening to the album. There is something very artificial in the sense that most of the time it feels very engineered, because of camera cuts and camera changes, and the difference in going from a front-row perspective to the camera shot cutting away to a wide shot so that the stadium is in full view. But then it also fulfils its purpose as “live music”. There is this sense in which it feels like you can’t look away, in case you miss something, even though you can pause it!

It is a heavily controlled, or perhaps, curated experience. Realistically, there are so many different cameras that are recording the same moments, that in post-production they are able to choose the best possible moments to cut together to provide to the viewers (I avoid the word audience here, because there is, in fact, a physical audience that we as viewers of the movie, are separated from).

I looked into the history of concert movies, and a quick google search led me to Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii a concert movie in which Pink Floyd played a short set of songs to no audience and recorded it.

youtube

Which is an odd concept, especially when you think about how it inspired other artists to film concerts.

That they played.

To no one.

I could see with Pink Floyd it being more of an artistic venture, but more recent concert movies like: Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience, Reputation Stadium Tour and Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids all are more framed as giving the viewers the opportunity to experience the show, but still having them remain apart from it. Some of these concert movies feel as though they were produced to allow those who did not have the opportunity to attend the show in person the chance to experience what that might have been like, others are made with the intent to give the viewer a little bit more of the backstage/behind the scenes experience. What all of them have in common, however, is the opportunity for the artists to profit once again off of the shows that they have already played.

Whatever the purpose is behind the movies being produced, they all are this weird experience of not-actually-being-there and knowing exactly what it would have been like to have attended.

#7: Instagram: Curating the Self (Definitely inspired by Sophia’s Presentation)

The Instagrams of popular artists are heavily curated to really emphasize their brands (”that’s very on-brand for you”), and who they are trying to portray themselves as. I feel as though no one really does this better than @taylorswift.

Shortly before she released reputation she wiped her Insta clean and started sharing gifs of different parts of a snake - a motif that she fully embraced for that particular era in her career. It was a practice she embraced again, leading up to the release of the first single of Lover. While she didn’t wipe her Instagram clean again, she did lead up to the release with little hints and teaser images that were all very inspired by the colour scheme and feel of the new album:

If you look at any artist’s Insta account you will find at least some of this curatorial work.

This brings us once again, back to the class on collecting, archiving and how collecting plays into identity construction. Each artist is curating their identity that they want to show the world (not unlike the discussion that we had involving Lana Del Rey and the front that she presents to the world, instead of her true self).

The work that goes into the Instagram account is mirrored in every public appearance, every show they play, and every interview they give. It is an odd concept when considering it in regards to the artist, but it becomes even weirder when we consider it in terms of just everyday people. We curate our lives on social media platforms to present ourselves in the best way possible. And we don’t have millions of people watching us while we do. Perhaps the hope is that the ideal that we portray could someday be reached, and that's why we continue to collect the images and videos to construct the ideal identity for ourselves.

While my life certainly isn’t very glamorous, I definitely do at least some curatorial work on my own Insta.

#8: Nostalgic Television

There has been a resurgence in the love of some older series like Friends and Gilmore Girls through the access to the full series on streaming platforms. Some of these shows have not aged very well (see: a good deal of Friends’ jokes), but the love for them continues anyway.

Recently, tv shows such as those named above, have been branded as “nostalgic television” and has been slated to be psychologically beneficial to help with anxiety.

But why do we remain so attached to TV shows such as these? Well, supposedly, just like the way we are drawn to watching the remakes of Disney’s movies as I mentioned earlier, it reminds us of our childhoods:

Will Meyerhofer, a New York-based psychotherapist and author, says watching our favourite old shows can be a useful tool for dealing with anxiety and mild depression.

"For my clients, these old shows are like the food they grew up with. 'The Brady Bunch' or 'The Facts of Life' or 'The Jeffersons' is like that beloved baloney sandwich on Wonder Bread with just enough mayo the way mom used to make,” he told TODAY.

A recent Facebook post on The Mighty health community got hundreds of responses to the question: "What TV show from your childhood would you want to marathon-watch on a bad flare day?" The answers ranged from "The Waltons" to "Barney Miller."

That's because television from yesteryear can make us feel safe and secure in a world that feels increasingly chaotic.

“In therapy terms, it's an instant — and for the most part healthy — regression in the service of the ego,” Meyerhofer said, adding that he unwinds with old episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

We long for a time when we felt safer, less stressed and when we were able to really enjoy the things we liked. TV shows that we watched as we were growing up provide us with the nostalgic fulfillment that we need to feel happy - even if it is just for the length of a thirty-minute Friends episode.

#9: Screen TIme

Something I noticed when I was watching Reputation Stadium Tour... for research... there was very few people who were actually just watching the show. There were many screens visible in the crowd at all times.

Something that has become very prevalent in concert culture, is that you don’t actually experience the concert first hand, you view it through your phone screen, as you record.

It is something that I have noticed myself doing, and have set the limitation of only allowing myself to record two songs out of the entire concert.

By viewing the concert through the recording, the actual experience of the concert is altered, and even though you are standing there in the room, you are participating at a distance, rather than being involved in the moment.

The need to record and to photograph, I would argue, comes out of the feeling of necessity to archive and sort every memory that we have. Concerts are special occasions and we don’t want to forget them - and if we don’t have a video or photo, did it really happen? We need to archive every moment so that we can go back to it later and remember how great it was.

But how great was it really if you were staring at your phone screen the entire time?

#10: The Rise of KPop in Canada and the US

There seems to have been a shift lately in Western popular culture in which Kpop (Korean Popular Music) is now being considered more mainstream.

Groups like BTS have found success on Western pop charts, their collaboration with Halsey, Boy with Luv, peaked at #10 on Billboard’s hot 100. Other Korean groups like Blackpink and Twice are also making a name for themselves on Western pop music charts.

What is interesting is that Kpop doesn’t really follow the same frame that most of the Western pop does. A lot of Kpop seems to be more dance-influenced, thus influencing the music stylistically and opening a lot more interesting opportunities for music videos.

Kpop is something different and separate from what Western Pop is comfortable with, and what influence it will have on the framework of the norm will be very interesting to see. I do wonder what Joshua Clover would have to say about Kpop groups and their involvement in popular music, and whether or not he would classify them in with the “Abject, feminized, and inauthentic: *NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, and Britney Spears...[who] dominate the list of best first-week sales”(103). There is, after all, something about the rhythm-based and often synthesized melodies that are prominent in Kpop that feels like a call-back to boy bands and pop stars of the late 90′s and early 00′s

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, that is it for my top ten! If you made it to the end, and are not my Prof [who does have to read it all the way to the end - Hi Dr. Burke! You made it! ] Thanks for reading!!

3 notes · View notes

octanta-blog · 6 years

Photo

After the launch of the Megaplan mailing list, people are often asked to do the same for other companies.

“Why do you need a mailing, like Megaplan?” I ask.

“Well, it’s … How, content marketing, attracting customers, the most effective tool for building loyalty,” answers the perplexed entrepreneur. It turns out that he has no idea why this is for him and how to use it.

From the side of content marketing - it’s easy: you write content → form a reputation → you get customers → profit.

But in reality it is a minefield, on which it is easy to lose a mountain of money and not get any result.

And, unlike the “Sapper”, here you need to think through the actions very much in advance. This is a much less exciting lesson, than to prepare dramatic presentations or to fight in the comments. So today we have a day of tediousness.

What is content marketing?

I’ll start with an example.

Marina is a private psychologist. She had a popular practice in St. Petersburg, but she had to move to Moscow, where she did not know anyone. To find new clients in Moscow, she made herself a small business card site. To to attract people to him, she posted an advertisement in Yandex. People began to call.

Unfortunately, after the first call and the first consultation of 20 people who came for 2 months, Marina had only one client left. The rest were not ready to work with a psychologist and spent her time. Marina concluded that she does not need clients who are looking for a psychologist on the Internet.

Instead of advertising, she began writing articles for the Moscow website on improving the quality of life. It was read by people who feel that they live an inferior and incomplete life. People came to this site, read articles Marina, formulated with their help their problems, imbued with confidence in the Marina and sought help. Content marketing is the attraction of customers with useful and interesting content. Not advertising, not the recommendations of friends, namely content. Content literally means “content” or “content.”

Content is: any useful text: tweet, post in social network, blog post, newsletter issue, article, book; useful and interesting video; An interactive application or service that does something useful for free; presentation at a conference or seminar with a useful report; training course, webinar, master class. The key word is good. Content differs from advertising in that it tries to be useful in itself, without concealed commercial intent. EXAMPLES FROM LIFE

Studio Lebedev every day lynching stranger design, and designer Artemy Lebedev publishes chapters of the manual for designers every five years. So he and his company share their knowledge and beliefs, form the reputation of a scandalous and bold design studio. You can argue which studio is the best in Russia, but the answer to the question about the most famous studio is obvious. The designer and design business coach Vadim Payasu opened the project “Artdirektto” (“Design business”). He advertises himself as an expert in the field of design business, invites you to the training “Design Management”. To me It is difficult to assess how similar to the truth is what he writes about, but he will surely attract someone. The digital agency “Ingeit” makes a dispatch “Dog’s opinion” about what the industry lives, how to work in it, and what now fashionable. They form the reputation of the owners of the industry: everyone knows by name, they understand everything in everything, they all have their own opinion. Webinar.ru made a sensible mini-book on how to conduct webinars. It does not matter which service to use then - the book is useful to anyone who wants to conduct presentations through the Internet. Before downloading the book collect leads, that is reasonable. Megaplan makes a useful newsletter and publishes its text on the site. He tells interesting stories, reviews books, shares knowledge. How to do it. Purpose and audience

Before writing a line of useful text, a smart entrepreneur answers two questions: Who do I want to attract with my actions? What should I report about my company in order to attract these people? Questions are simple, but difficult answers. It depends on them what content to produce, what to put in it and how to measure the result. Let’s say I make websites: I can attract a large business with old well-known brands. He needs to talk about, how sites affect the success of huge old brands. I can attract the owner of a medium-sized business that sells services for the “coarse”. He needs history of the conquest of a large client. I can attract startups who want to open an online business on American canons. I will tell them how to adapt these canons to Russia. I can attract young entrepreneurs who want to open a food delivery service. For them - about the restaurant business. I can draw designers to my own company. I will talk about how we built work, how we do projects and what values we profess. The loaf-loaf Karavai-loaf, anyone you want to choose Audience analysis and objectives help to clearly define the thematic scope of our content marketing and the criteria for it effectiveness. Now I always know whether I’m writing about this, and when I start to write, those people are reading me. WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND AUDIENCE AND PURPOSE Without understanding the audience and the goal, we will wander in the dark: publish something, waste time and money, but do not understand, then we do. Unlike advertising in Yandex, where the ad is turned on and off by clicking, content marketing works long. The blog article written today can lead you to the client in a month or a year. It is impossible, as bequeathed by Lesha Kulichevsky, to quickly test the effectiveness of the advertising channel and, if that, then it’s his

____________