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thebadtimewolf · 1 year

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why r u so mad about ppl preferring ten x madame de pompadour to ten x martha like ten/martha will never be a thing. ten don’t want anything to do with martha. he literally said to her face she wouldn’t replace rose… and she never did… isnt canon enough for you

hm.

im glad im only a scorpio on this alone. if martha deserved better than ten then so do all of em but anyway:

this ask is giving 2006/07 i dont want to see tenth doctor in a romantic relationship with a person of color because i can't project myself or relate to them if they arent the very thing being catered to me ever since the silent pictures vibes. u know the same vibe when rtd was told to not regenerate 14 in 13's clothes. just. Ick.

but im not mad. its just interesting for a ship so big as tenrose, it is usually correlated with hating madame de pompadour and/or joan and/or river [though in joan's case they hate her not because shes racist but because shes not rose]

though comics tend to release to combat that in multi doctor stories where they jump through various alternate universes of themselves where the doctor sees themselves settled down with dr. grace holloway (for 8th dr multi doctor stories) and professor melody williams/river song (for 11th dr multi doctor stories) where in those cases, they are frightful of the concept settling down at all. [take note that both times, he settles down in the same house that he owns bc of that unit paycheck on the dl] so i am curious that with this new drs, the equivalent of this would be 13 14 15 being terrified of settling down with rose because they had grown past her as this point.

i prefer the doctor in a polyromantic ace relationship than their umpteenth 🌟tragic heteronormative romance with yt human woman number 23445788764443356743🌟 i want 14 to sweep martha off her feet in pure joy and kiss her passionately while badmouthing tf out of 10 like 9 11 12 13 do with no filter before cradling her like a baby because hes about to crumble under his brand new identity complex and then take her kid to an amusement park and then 14 trips over a brick and dies. hell i rather have nina sosanya play a whole different lady in nod to doctor who recycles their actors trope as a way to introduce a love interest to 14

that amusment park one weirdly sounds like a 8th doctor audio. pls 🙏🏾 dont make it into one i couldnt handle schezro let alone the rest of his content. Empire of the Wolf made me so fucking worried for rose marion tyler like im just she back home 🫣. as for rose tyler from the sea devil universe still out about. whoop his ass. if billie come back as HER? MISS COVER MODEL MISS DICTATOR MISS EMPRESS ROSE?

NOT

i would love for ten to be strictly friends with the new miss empress rose. get that martha karma real quick ehehehehe after all rtd did say they need freema for somethin and im sure seeing 10 get treated the same way he treated martha by no other than empress rose herself -AND THEN EMPRESS ROSE FLIRTS WITH MARTHA??? FINGERS CROSSED??? im just saying that i personally will ride on that for 8 black history months and christmases straight like woo

also real glad it is collectively decided by every one that tentoo is just john smith not corin so yay thanks big finish and titan comics

#{lets see if i can scare this anon away listen i even made a graphic for this damn it. u better appreciate it i went all out for you}#{porn blogs and micro antiblack anons: this is why i dont share my shipping opinions much bc they stick to tv and i stick to everything}#{usually all this i gave to my aunt and we would have phone discussions and she would watch and call be like hey yeah! i see it}#{and she would say: but really it wasnt that for martha. it was the writing choices that was disapproved because not wanting another 💞}#{it went from classism for rose to racism for martha and she points that it wasnt catered to black fans in the rtd era}#{so yeah ten x martha wouldn't be a thing but only because test audiences and fans refused it due to the studios racial bias}#{10 wanted everything to do w martha. he just used rose as excuse and because of that 12 and 13 vocally to his face hates him for it}#{and we all fell for it: everybody did because like 12 said: its the bambi eyes. hook line and sucker}#{he wanted martha the whole time but he kept playing that hot n cold game to the wrong girl just bc it worked on 2 later 3 yt blonde women}#{4 yt women because of miss kylie minogue! all of a sudden he dont know how to counterflirt when a blk woman flirts back?}#{yes thats right im throwing miss claire pope AND IN THE GABBY GONZALES COMIC OF THE PPL OUTSIDE HER FAMILY LAUNDROMAT??}#{but yeah after losing donna suddenly supiciously hes not racist but extremely genocidal to death and death alone like hm.}#{his actions speak extremely louder than his words and in turn so does the fandom and its writers}#{4 yt blondes and hes willing to believe in them despite him having to permanently lose them but completely have lil faith in the blk one?}#{ ten never actually go back to martha. be fair if i forgave the person that enslave her family for a missing year? yeah i wouldnt either}#{we could never be together because of a yt woman i chose to leave behind three times with her mum for 'safety' boy bye}#{and i go around and almost in one whole episode almost left her behind AGAIN for madame de pompadour another blonde yt woman?}#{like i ship them i ship all of em but if they were all hanging off a cliff side? 🤧 😔 we gather here today in the loss of 🌹 and depomp}#{dont worry at least 9 would leap after rose.}#bw: out of ethos #answered #anonymous #bw: long post #{i made a long post just so i surprise you with a cute billie graphic thats all. that the main topic}

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taniushka12 · 1 year

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Fighting for my life crying throwing up arriving at 7 am bc i dont know the hour of my exam bc i technically arent allowed to do it bc i didnt technically sign up for it but still pretend to talk my way into it and hope for the best, bc im an idiot who reads emails once per week

#i know i knowwwwww you're not supposed to do this but its the cbc they're more light w/ this kinda thing right? RIGHT?#also i went to every class and participated its not like im just dropping by from nowhere #tani's personal shit #ive got class at 13 but you never know. 9 am only four hours to go. good thing i brought my BOOK #god fellas im dying here

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exopelagic · 3 months

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A list of things I’m frustrated by:

#1. my right skate won’t fucking tighten right it’s being stiff so I can’t skate properly again. they don’t fit right but I can’t do shit now #2. I’m not enjoying ice hockey as much right now bc of that and the people being. not annoying but. I’m disconnected from them #3. feeling disconnected from everything because of the residual barriers I put up but also the ones are just There bc of outside forces.#4. of them the disconnect that comes from not like loud music/crowds/drinking when you’re at uni.#5. the fact that the friends I have most access to I largely don’t like that much bc half are straight and southern and rich and annoying #6. the fact that a different group of friends basically just stopped talking to me and honestly didn’t really want me around that much anywa #7. the fact I don’t care that much about that. any of that. and I’m not Cool with not talking to them anymore but it’s just Happened yknow #8. the fact that’s a significant portion of the queer people I know here. and the others aren’t people I’m anywhere near as close to.#9. the way it’s my third year here and a bunch of people are graduating and opportunities to meet new people went to hell like two years ago #10. i Can meet new people and in fact am even now but everything is so much effort #11. how that’s probably how it’s gonna be the rest of my life bc being an adult sucks. I’ll get Maybe one more shot at meeting a bunch of #people quickly if I do a phd and move but that’s hellish for other reasons and I lose a lot in doing that. but I lose a lot no matter what #12. graduating sucks and so many of my friends are doing it this year. I’m not but next year will suck bc of flatmates and everyone missing #13. feeling on the edge of hockey friends bc they’re fucking hockey players and make dumb fucking jokes. and how I can’t do that #14. anxious isolated gay boy I was never gonna be cool with that and there was never any way I could’ve been on the team #15. the fact I decided not to go for the team partly bc of that and the fact I dont regret that decision. bc I like ice hockey but I couldnt #17. knowing the answers to most of my problems bc I’m at That point where I have the self awareness and maturity to some extent to see #exactly what’s going on and what’s up with it and the right way to go about things. and still feeling the fucking feelings anyway #18. the weird fucking position I occupy both w queerness and the north/south thing weirdly where I’m gay+northern + surrounded by Not #and neither feel like they belong to me. distinctly Other but not in the right way and both sides see that. always a little off #19. being socially aware enough to see exactly where things are awkward or done badly but not knowing in the moment how to make it Not #20. the way the shit The Asshole said abt my anxiety has stuck with me so much and I still think abt it all the time #21. the way he was my fucking first. a lot. and then did That to me and there’s been nobody since and that’s fine but see point 17 #22. the way shit is slow to fade both with Him and current guy (very different things that are fading) even though both are fucking dumb #23. current guy being the fourth and should know bettering and knowing that’s bullshit too and I hate it. gonna start biting #24. not having the means time or opportunity to meet other people instead. and feeling dumb abt wanting to. and abt not doing some stuff #25. the fact this list is long enough that I’m gonna run out of tags and there’s still more but it’s 4am and I’m done #luke.txt #I’ll be fine once I’ve slept on it all. I should do something abt this probably but idk what right now and I should sleep mostly so. night!!

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hussyknee · 1 year

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i'm so confused rn, can you explain the goncharov thing?? i get off tumblr for five minutes

(Edits closed as of 28 Nov.)

Lmaoooo

Nah I getchu. So this post has been circulating for like two years:

Link to post.

But yesterday, it had inspired someone to do this:

Link to post.

Next thing I knew there were fake Letterboxed reviews.

Goncharov moodboards. Really good ones.

Link to post.

Meta analysis. So many fake meta essays. Disturbingly good ones. And of course the memes. (Edit: HAVE I SAID THIS SHIT IS DISTURBING)

As you can see, the myth just started to grow, characters and ships and tropes being added one after the other, almost bizzarely without contradiction, until there was enough of shape to the whole thing for people to start posting fanfic about it on AO3. "No beta we die like ice-pick Joe" is already a tag.

Link to post.

It was hilarious in the beginning, but the way it's developed within less than a day, kind of like it's being willed into existence, is freaking me out a bit. We're toying with powers beyond our comprehension. 😂😂😂

Link to post.

Of course, there could be an ulterior motive as well.

Link to post (tags mine).

Edit: guys, please tag these posts "unreality" so people with disassociation issues can filter them out (not this one, this is an explainer). <3

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

Edit 2: Aparently the boots in the original post are actually referring to a movie called Gomorrah that came out in 2008, directed by Mateo Garrone, based on the Scampia Feud. And other people had also been making posts about the fake movie for a while before the poster took off.

found by @thepotch

Edit 3: Explainer: why did those boots have this movie on them anyway?

Edit 4: Alt text added to all images courtesy of @valentineish ❤️

Edit 5: Turns out tumblr has done this kind of thing before. Nine years in this hell place and I had to have "Squiddles" and penis smp explained in the replies.

Edit 6: This post collects the Lore so far.

Edit 7: Lynda Carter (real one)/ earns more/ Tumblr cred.

Edit 8: Holy shit y'all we have the theme music. With sheet music. And it's on Spotify!

Edit 9: THERE IS A TRAILER WITH THE THEME MUSIC

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

I made this post 18 hours after the movie poster went up. Closed edits 27 hours after first posting. So all of the above happened within 45 hours of the movie poster going up.

Edit 10: Google document live-compiling all the lore so far (Day 3)

Edit 11: Masterpost of Goncharov soundtracks (Day 3)

Edit 12: Entertainment news articles covering the Gonch-posting (real) (Contd from yday)

Edit 13: The music from the masterpost all compiled into a 31-minute original score with video edits on YouTube (edit: unfortunately taken down)

Edit 14: Staff's Goncharov art showcase for Tumblr Tuesday

As of closing on Day 3 there are 371 works in the AO3 tag.

-----

Updating with Day 3 shenanigans I missed yesterday:

Edit 15: Goncharov TV Tropes page

Edit 16: Ethics of Gonchposting

Important PSA 1 (how to reduce harm to Tumblr's neurodivergents)

Important PSA 2 (reality affirmation, anti-bullying)

Important PSA 3 (why you should stop trying to vandalise legit information sites)

Edit 17: Character lore from beezlebub whose poster they originated from

Edit 18: What we know about/ Director Matteo JWHJ0715 (#unreality)

Edit 19: Link to post with screenshotted and described NYT article (scroll down) and this golden exerpt from BuzzFeed: 💀

(alt text included)

End of Day 4 there are now 485 works in the Goncharov tag on AO3

----

Didn't get to update this on Day 5, so these are the Day 5 doings:

More trailers!

Trailer 1 (My favourite)

Trailer 2

Trailer 3

Trailer 4

I also just found out about the Goncharov Game Jam.

It appears this opened a day after after the meme took off.

Goncharov was first entered into Wikipedia between Day 4 and 5 (attempts to vandalise it with fake info don't count, incidentally – please knock that shit off) under List of Internet Phenomena. This was then expanded into its own Wikipedia page at the end of Day 5 because, according to the talk history: "the topic now meets the notability threshold for its own artice due to significant coverage in The New York Times and other sources cited." We're on Wikipedia, people!

And then we made The Guardian half a day later. So while the meme is definitely dying down to embers by now, it still stays winning.

YouTube channels with episodes on the meme:

InformOverlord (4:30)

Lessons in Meme Culture (2:43)

End of Day of 5 there were 511 works on AO3, and End of Day 6 (today) there are 556.

🚨BREAKING 🚨 from Martin Scorsese's daughter's TikTok (real actual)

tw: unreality:

We did it you guys!

Clarification: Francesca Scorcese asked her Dad about the meme and Martin played along. Please reblog this PSA to help Tumblr people with psychosis. Thanks.

Final edit: Day 8. Media reactions to Scorcese's TikTok (everyone from Forbes to Vulture). That one Tumblr user who said they'd do a screenplay if their post got notes has promised to shoot a single scene, but please don't be dicks just because you reblogged it; leave them alone until they get around to it themselves. As of end of Day 8 there are 609 works in the AO3 tag. I love all you lunatics. Peace! ❤️

#goncharov 1973 #reasons i can never leave this hellsite #we've ascended from pirating criterion movies to straight up manifesting them into existence #get on our level twits #knee of huss #goncharov #tumblr lore #tumblr memes #tumblr culture

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fairuzfan · 26 days

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But the other images I had was like a mass refugee camp. So basically at that point in time, two months ago, about 20,000 people had sought refuge both in the hospital and outside the hospital. And these weren’t tents. They’re still not tents. They’re makeshift shelters with bed sheets or plastic bag sheets. The ones outside sleep on the floor. They’re lucky [if] they get a carpet or a mat. There was one bathroom at the time for about 200 people that they have to share. And inside, the hallways of the hospital were also made into shelters. There was hardly any room to walk, and there’s children running around everywhere. It’s important to remember all these people were not homeless. They all had homes that were destroyed. They’re all displaced people that took shelter in the hospital.

So that’s the kind of mass chaos that I encountered initially, and then I was told that every time there’s a bomb, give it about 15 minutes and the mass casualties come. That was the other thing that at the time shocked me: What we’d been seeing livestreamed on Instagram, on social media or whatever, I actually saw myself and it was worse than I can imagine. I saw scenes that were horrific that I’d never witnessed before and I never want to see again. You have a mother walking in holding her 8, 9-year-old, skinny — because they’re all starving — boy who’s dead, he’s cold and dead and [the mother is] screaming, asking for someone to check his pulse and everybody’s busy in the mass chaos. So that was kind of my initial welcoming scene when I entered Khan Younis the first time.

{...}

What I saw — I’m an eye surgeon, an eye plastic surgeon, and so I saw the classic, what I penned “the Gaza shrapnel face,” because in an explosive scenario, you don’t know what’s coming. When there’s an explosion, you don’t go like this [cover your face], you kind of actually, in fact, open your eyes. And so shrapnel’s everywhere. It’s a well-known fact that the Israeli forces are experimenting [with] weapons in Gaza to boost their weapon manufacturing industry. Because if a weapon is battle-tested, it’s more valuable, isn’t it? It’s got a higher value. So basically they’re using these weapons, these missiles that purposely, intently create these large shrapnel fragments that go everywhere. And they cause amputations that are unusual.

Most amputations occur at the weak points, the elbow or the knee, and so they’re better tolerated. But these [shrapnel fragments] are causing mid-thigh, mid-arm amputations that are more difficult, more challenging, and also the rehabilitation afterward is also more challenging. Also these shrapnels [are] unlike a bullet wound. A bullet wound goes in and out; there’s an entry and exit point. Shrapnel stays there. So you gotta take it out. So the injuries I saw were — I mean, I saw people with their eyes blown apart. And when I was there, and this is my experience, I treated all children when I was there the first time. It was kids that [were aged] 2, 6, 9, 10, 13, 15, and 16, and 17 were the ones that I treated. And their eyes unfortunately had to be removed. They had shrapnel in their eye sockets that I had to remove and, of course, remove the eye. There’s many patients, many children who had shrapnel in both their eyes. And you can only do so much because right now, because of the aid blockade and because of the destruction of most of Gaza, there’s no equipment available to take shrapnel that’s in the eye out. And so we just leave them alone and they eventually go blind.

{...}

I was on the ground, I toured the refugee camps, I went around Rafah, I saw, and if there’s an Israeli invasion, I can’t emphasize enough how catastrophic it’s going to be. It’ll be mass killing, mass destruction, because all these figures come in, 50 dead, 100 wounded. But what people don’t realize is, being wounded is a death sentence. Being wounded in this environment with no health care system, completely collapsed, is a death sentence. And the wounded often will lose everybody, like all family members, so they have no supports, especially children, have nobody left to take care of them, not even aunts and uncles. It will be catastrophic. I don’t know what to say to the world to stop an impending invasion. You’ve got to rein this prime minister of Israel in. You got to do something to stop this stupid invasion that he still wants to do, because it’ll be catastrophic.

{...}

I had one young man, about 25 years old, he lost one eye that I took out myself. He spent about five, six, or seven years, basically spent thousands and thousands of dollars in IVF treatment because he got married young and they wanted to have a child and they couldn’t have one. So he spent years on IVF treatment and finally had a baby that was 3 months old. And there was a missile attack by Israel at his home. He lost his entire family, including his baby and his wife and his parents and family. He’s by himself, single guy. I took his one eye out, and he has nobody in this world. He just kind of walks around the tent structures, just kind of walking around with no home and trying to sleep wherever he can.

#palestine #gaza

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swooshywoo · 9 months

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so. my job has over hired. and is cutting all the students hours. and is continuing to hire students. despite pushing us to give summer availability thats much more than school time. all theyve done so far for changes is cut every single persons hours (except those who are full time). god

#im getting 13 hours a week my friend is getting 5-10 depending on if he picks up other peoples shifts #grins. i havent even been fully trained yet either i did sandwich bar last night bc the only person who knew went on break #they legit also understaff the evenings theres only 3 people working there from 5-9 #so one on sandwich; the other two dashing between drivethru and front making all the drinks #except for when its completely dead lol #anyways. im gonna bus down to the big mall in town (the only good one) with a stack of resumes #and hand them out to literally every store there #im getting my schedule 1-2 days in advance now too the managers changed which one was scheduling and now it fucking sucks its #an hours jumpscare #we also get one weeks worth of shifts in advance #so like we get the schedule friday usually; and it covers sunday-saturday #how the fuck am i supposed to plan out my life like that without taking insane amounts of days off

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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

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Google’s enshittification memos

[Note, 9 October 2023: Google disputes the veracity of this claim, but has declined to provide the exhibits and testimony to support its claims. Read more about this here.]

When I think about how the old, good internet turned into the enshitternet, I imagine a series of small compromises, each seemingly reasonable at the time, each contributing to a cultural norm of making good things worse, and worse, and worse.

Think about Unity President Marc Whitten's nonpology for his company's disastrous rug-pull, in which they declared that everyone who had paid good money to use their tool to make a game would have to keep paying, every time someone downloaded that game:

The most fundamental thing that we’re trying to do is we’re building a sustainable business for Unity. And for us, that means that we do need to have a model that includes some sort of balancing change, including shared success.

https://www.wired.com/story/unity-walks-back-policies-lost-trust/

"Shared success" is code for, "If you use our tool to make money, we should make money too." This is bullshit. It's like saying, "We just want to find a way to share the success of the painters who use our brushes, so every time you sell a painting, we want to tax that sale." Or "Every time you sell a house, the company that made the hammer gets to wet its beak."

And note that they're not talking about shared risk here – no one at Unity is saying, "If you try to make a game with our tools and you lose a million bucks, we're on the hook for ten percent of your losses." This isn't partnership, it's extortion.

How did a company like Unity – which became a market leader by making a tool that understood the needs of game developers and filled them – turn into a protection racket? One bad decision at a time. One rationalization and then another. Slowly, and then all at once.

When I think about this enshittification curve, I often think of Google, a company that had its users' backs for years, which created a genuinely innovative search engine that worked so well it seemed like *magic, a company whose employees often had their pick of jobs, but chose the "don't be evil" gig because that mattered to them.

People make fun of that "don't be evil" motto, but if your key employees took the gig because they didn't want to be evil, and then you ask them to be evil, they might just quit. Hell, they might make a stink on the way out the door, too:

https://theintercept.com/2018/09/13/google-china-search-engine-employee-resigns/

Google is a company whose founders started out by publishing a scientific paper describing their search methodology, in which they said, "Oh, and by the way, ads will inevitably turn your search engine into a pile of shit, so we're gonna stay the fuck away from them":

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf

Those same founders retained a controlling interest in the company after it went IPO, explaining to investors that they were going to run the business without having their elbows jostled by shortsighted Wall Street assholes, so they could keep it from turning into a pile of shit:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

And yet, it's turned into a pile of shit. Google search is so bad you might as well ask Jeeves. The company's big plan to fix it? Replace links to webpages with florid paragraphs of chatbot nonsense filled with a supremely confident lies:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/14/googles-ai-hype-circle/

How did the company get this bad? In part, this is the "curse of bigness." The company can't grow by attracting new users. When you have 90%+ of the market, there are no new customers to sign up. Hypothetically, they could grow by going into new lines of business, but Google is incapable of making a successful product in-house and also kills most of the products it buys from other, more innovative companies:

https://killedbygoogle.com/

Theoretically, the company could pursue new lines of business in-house, and indeed, the current leaders of companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Apple are all execs who figured out how to get the whole company to do something new, and were elevated to the CEO's office, making each one a billionaire and sealing their place in history.

It is for this very reason that any exec at a large firm who tries to make a business-wide improvement gets immediately and repeatedly knifed by all their colleagues, who correctly reason that if someone else becomes CEO, then they won't become CEO. Machiavelli was an optimist:

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

With no growth from new customers, and no growth from new businesses, "growth" has to come from squeezing workers (say, laying off 12,000 engineers after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years), or business customers (say, by colluding with Facebook to rig the ad market with the Jedi Blue conspiracy), or end-users.

Now, in theory, we might never know exactly what led to the enshittification of Google. In theory, all of compromises, debates and plots could be lost to history. But tech is not an oral culture, it's a written one, and techies write everything down and nothing is ever truly deleted.

Time and again, Big Tech tells on itself. Think of FTX's main conspirators all hanging out in a group chat called "Wirefraud." Amazon naming its program targeting weak, small publishers the "Gazelle Project" ("approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle”). Amazon documenting the fact that users were unknowingly signing up for Prime and getting pissed; then figuring out how to reduce accidental signups, then deciding not to do it because it liked the money too much. Think of Zuck emailing his CFO in the middle of the night to defend his outsized offer to buy Instagram on the basis that users like Insta better and Facebook couldn't compete with them on quality.

It's like every Big Tech schemer has a folder on their desktop called "Mens Rea" filled with files like "Copy_of_Premeditated_Murder.docx":

https://doctorow.medium.com/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself-f7f0eb6d215a?sk=351f8a54ab8e02d7340620e5eec5024d

Right now, Google's on trial for its sins against antitrust law. It's a hard case to make. To secure a win, the prosecutors at the DoJ Antitrust Division are going to have to prove what was going on in Google execs' minds when the took the actions that led to the company's dominance. They're going to have to show that the company deliberately undertook to harm its users and customers.

Of course, it helps that Google put it all in writing.

Last week, there was a huge kerfuffile over the DoJ's practice of posting its exhibits from the trial to a website each night. This is a totally normal thing to do – a practice that dates back to the Microsoft antitrust trial. But Google pitched a tantrum over this and said that the docs the DoJ were posting would be turned into "clickbait." Which is another way of saying, "the public would find these documents very interesting, and they would be damning to us and our case":

https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/secrecy-is-systemic

After initially deferring to Google, Judge Amit Mehta finally gave the Justice Department the greenlight to post the document. It's up. It's wild:

https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-09/416692.pdf

The document is described as "notes for a course on communication" that Google VP for Finance Michael Roszak prepared. Roszak says he can't remember whether he ever gave the presentation, but insists that the remit for the course required him to tell students "things I didn't believe," and that's why the document is "full of hyperbole and exaggeration."

OK.

But here's what the document says: "search advertising is one of the world's greatest business models ever created…illicit businesses (cigarettes or drugs) could rival these economics…[W]e can mostly ignore the demand side…(users and queries) and only focus on the supply side of advertisers, ad formats and sales."

It goes on to say that this might be changing, and proposes a way to balance the interests of the search and ads teams, which are at odds, with search worrying that ads are pushing them to produce "unnatural search experiences to chase revenue."

"Unnatural search experiences to chase revenue" is a thinly veiled euphemism for the prophetic warnings in that 1998 Pagerank paper: "The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users." Or, more plainly, "ads will turn our search engine into a pile of shit."

And, as Roszak writes, Google is "able to ignore one of the fundamental laws of economics…supply and demand." That is, the company has become so dominant and cemented its position so thoroughly as the default search engine across every platforms and system that even if it makes its search terrible to goose revenues, users won't leave. As Lily Tomlin put it on SNL: "We don't have to care, we're the phone company."

In the enshittification cycle, companies first lure in users with surpluses – like providing the best search results rather than the most profitable ones – with an eye to locking them in. In Google's case, that lock-in has multiple facets, but the big one is spending billions of dollars – enough to buy a whole Twitter, every single year – to be the default search everywhere.

Google doesn't buy its way to dominance because it has the very best search results and it wants to shield you from inferior competitors. The economically rational case for buying default position is that preventing competition is more profitable than succeeding by outperforming competitors. The best reason to buy the default everywhere is that it lets you lower quality without losing business. You can "ignore the demand side, and only focus on advertisers."

For a lot of people, the analysis stops here. "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product." Google locks in users and sells them to advertisers, who are their co-conspirators in a scheme to screw the rest of us.

But that's not right. For one thing, paying for a product doesn't mean you won't be the product. Apple charges a thousand bucks for an iPhone and then nonconsensually spies on every iOS user in order to target ads to them (and lies about it):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

John Deere charges six figures for its tractors, then runs a grift that blocks farmers from fixing their own machines, and then uses their control over repair to silence farmers who complain about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it

Fair treatment from a corporation isn't a loyalty program that you earn by through sufficient spending. Companies that can sell you out, will sell you out, and then cry victim, insisting that they were only doing their fiduciary duty for their sacred shareholders. Companies are disciplined by fear of competition, regulation or – in the case of tech platforms – customers seizing the means of computation and installing ad-blockers, alternative clients, multiprotocol readers, etc:

https://doctorow.medium.com/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse-3cc01e7e4604?sk=85b3f5f7d051804521c3411711f0b554

Which is where the next stage of enshittification comes in: when the platform withdraws the surplus it had allocated to lure in – and then lock in – business customers (like advertisers) and reallocate it to the platform's shareholders.

For Google, there are several rackets that let it screw over advertisers as well as searchers (the advertisers are paying for the product, and they're also the product). Some of those rackets are well-known, like Jedi Blue, the market-rigging conspiracy that Google and Facebook colluded on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

But thanks to the antitrust trial, we're learning about more of these. Megan Gray – ex-FTC, ex-DuckDuckGo – was in the courtroom last week when evidence was presented on Google execs' panic over a decline in "ad generating searches" and the sleazy gimmick they came up with to address it: manipulating the "semantic matching" on user queries:

https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-lawsuit-search-results/

When you send a query to Google, it expands that query with terms that are similar – for example, if you search on "Weds" it might also search for "Wednesday." In the slides shown in the Google trial, we learned about another kind of semantic matching that Google performed, this one intended to turn your search results into "a twisted shopping mall you can’t escape."

Here's how that worked: when you ran a query like "children's clothing," Google secretly appended the brand name of a kids' clothing manufacturer to the query. This, in turn, triggered a ton of ads – because rival brands will have bought ads against their competitors' name (like Pepsi buying ads that are shown over queries for Coke).

Here we see surpluses being taken away from both end-users and business customers – that is, searchers and advertisers. For searchers, it doesn't matter how much you refine your query, you're still going to get crummy search results because there's an unkillable, hidden search term stuck to your query, like a piece of shit that Google keeps sticking to the sole of your shoe.

But for advertisers, this is also a scam. They're paying to be matched to users who search on a brand name, and you didn't search on that brand name. It's especially bad for the company whose name has been appended to your search, because Google has a protection racket where the company that matches your search has to pay extra in order to show up overtop of rivals who are worse matches. Both the matching company and those rivals have given Google a credit-card that Google gets to bill every time a user searches on the company's name, and Google is just running fraudulent charges through those cards.

And, of course, Google put this in writing. I mean, of course they did. As we learned from the documentary The Incredibles, supervillains can't stop themselves from monologuing, and in big, sprawling monopolists, these monologues have to transmitted electronically – and often indelibly – to far-flung co-cabalists.

As Gray points out, this is an incredibly blunt enshittification technique: "it hadn’t even occurred to me that Google just flat out deletes queries and replaces them with ones that monetize better." We don't know how long Google did this for or how frequently this bait-and-switch was deployed.

But if this is a blunt way of Google smashing its fist down on the scales that balance search quality against ad revenues, there's plenty of subtler ways the company could sneak a thumb on there. A Google exec at the trial rhapsodized about his company's "contract with the user" to deliver an "honest results policy," but given how bad Google search is these days, we're left to either believe he's lying or that Google sucks at search.

The paper trail offers a tantalizing look at how a company went from doing something that was so good it felt like a magic trick to being "able to ignore one of the fundamental laws of economics…supply and demand," able to "ignore the demand side…(users and queries) and only focus on the supply side of advertisers."

What's more, this is a system where everyone loses (except for Google): this isn't a grift run by Google and advertisers on users – it's a grift Google runs on everyone.

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/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

#pluralistic #enshittification #semantic matching #google #antitrust #trustbusting #transparency #fatfingers #serp #the algorithm #telling on yourself

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satoriberry · 1 year

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can we talk about how fucked up someone's head can be after going to a gender-seperated school and not normally interacting with the opposite gender for +5 years cause dawg....

#berry.rambles <3 #“we dont want our children to commit sinful acts and fall into temptation” you're tempting me to put a bullet in your head brother #KIDS DONT CARE ABOUT THAT KIND OF STUFF WHEN THEY'RE 10 11 12 13 14???? THEY JUST GO TO FUCKING SCHOOL TO SEE THEIR FRIENDS NO ONE CARESSS #yes i went to a religious academic institution how did you guess ahaha anyway.#no i seriously need to speak about this #the alienation from the opposite gender does nothing but reinforce the idea that you shouldnt talk to them unless you want to get married #which is???#H U H #where did that come from???#and second is because its “the order of nature???”#no buddy that's not how it works #and its so fucking funny how so many people believe in that one because most people have at least ONE friend that's really close THATS NOT #FROM THE SAME FUCKING GENDER GROUP #LIKE EVEN I!!! ME WHO WENT TO A STRICT RELIGIOUS SCHOOL FOR 9 YEARS!!! CAN FUCKING CONFIRM THAT ITS NOT TRUE #literally three of my closest friends are dudes we are HOMIES TILL WE DIE #and also the “guys and girls cant be friends without liking each other” what if i put a knife knife in your lungs??!! :3 #peepol are so stupid its insane sometimes uhhh anyway :3

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duckytree · 2 months

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can i have teenage dirtbag dick grayson hcs pls?? my parents are getting divorced i want to relate to him

in high school, dick was… interesting

1. he went to a prestigious private school with uniforms and never wore it properly. sometimes he would wear his gymnastics jacket over the summer dress shirt to hide the bruises and bandages that would peek through when he sweats. other times he would lie and say it was a sports accident

2. always red eyes. could have been weed, insomnia, or his daily breakdown in the bathroom

3. literally never shows up on time and comes up with increasingly wild excuses for why. still the top of the class

4. dyed his hair and wore jewellery even tho it was against code. they still let him keep it cause he was captain of the mathletes team and they couldn’t afford to lose him to win nationals

5. carries a pot and portable stove in his bag so he can make hangover ramen in class

6. hands always had bandages and sports tape

7. they made him get rid of his sneakers and wear dress shoes, so he started wearing weird socks instead. the worst was when he wore the grippy socks he stole from the mental health center

8. would pick up jason from book club and scare the shit out of everyone

9. got into fights a LOT. bruce sent a lot of gift baskets to the rich parents of the kids. but he secretly thought dick was in the right so all the gifts consisted of things he knew the family hated or were allergic to

10. regulated inconsistently between “energetic popular guy who is witty and fun to be around” and “dead inside” many times throughout the day

11. once borrowed a wax pen thinking it was a vape and was SO high for a geology exam that he resorted to licking the rock samples to identify them. he got a 98% on it, 2% off for spelling his name wrong

12. once stabbed himself with an epipen to stay awake long enough to study, nearly pissed himself

13. set the back of his hair on fire during patrol in sophomore year and had a reverse mullet for a few months (see picture)

#sorry about the divorce #art #fanart #dick grayson #nightwing #batman #dc #asks #duckytree

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kleem-o · 10 months

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Choose me her: Gojo x reader

part 2

a/n: since y'all really like the first one i'll give it to u guys since i love y'all. warning! theres smut here. here's part 1

"I-I can't, I fucking lover her"

Gojo hunches over as he vomits on a nearby bush in the park. "You're pathetic" Nanami sighs frustrated, as he pinches the bridge of his nose. "Come on man, you can't keep being like this." Geto says as he pats Gojo's back. It has been weeks since you and Gojo fought, and Gojo did not hear a single word from you. You blocked him on all social media accounts, even Facebook. So what did he do? He drank and drank. He would often call up the boys to go get a drink at a pub, and the few first times Nanami and Geto were okay with it, they were comforting their friend after all, but after the 10nth time, it became ridiculous. "I-ugh I gotta call her." Gojo was a mess. He was loudly crying like a little kid, longing for you. He took out his phone, and upon turning it on it was already at your contact. "Man-tsk! come on stop it!" Geto took the phone away from Gojo, hoping to stop whatever mess he'll make that would make matters worse. He took a glance at Gojo's phone and the sight was..

Wed, June 14 at 9:13 PM Hi baby I'm very very sorry. Please believe me I really didn't mean what I said Y/N. Can you please come home? Can we please talk? I'm sorry baby I really am. I love you.

Wed, June 14 at 10:02 PM Y/N?

Wed, June 14 at 10:25 PM Y/N baby its getting real late now. Where are you? I'll come pick you up. Please answer baby its not safe out. I love you.

Wed, June 14 10:46 PM Y/N please pick up the phone, where are you?? Are you okay?? Please answer babe

Wed, June 15 1:09 AM Hii baby I heard from Shoko you were at your parents' house. Lets talk soon okay? Goodnight. Sweetdreams. I love you.

Before Geto could read more of the endless messages of 'I love yous' and 'I'm sorry' and 'Come home', Gojo snatched his phone back and immediately called you. Of course only for it to be added to the countless missed calls he made. This made the man cry harder as his two friends helplessly watched. "Why don't you just go to her house then?" Nanami pointedly asked. "Obviously I already thought of that! I did and when I went there she wasn't there anymore, so I went to her apartment, but I think she told the landlady not to let me in the building.." Gojo kept his head down, too ashamed at everything that happened. All of this was his fault after all. If he listened to you none of this would have happened. "Okay, look. Drinking to kill your liver isn't helping anyone, you don't even like alcohol! Go talk to her. Stay in front of her building or something! We'll try our best to help you-" "We??" "-yes, WE will help you" Geto looked at Nanami with a furrowed brow, there was no way he was letting Nanami escape. "But for now, lets just go home. You're too wasted to talk to anyone anyway." Nanami says. The two drove Gojo home.

Gojo's apartment was silent, too silent. He misses the way you would greet him when he got home, the way you would kiss him. He misses hugging you from behind as you cook, and he misses how you would bite his arm as he does the dishes. He misses all the silly things, all the things that reminded him of you. As he got to his bed he knew that a killer headache would welcome him in the morning, and you weren't there to cuddle it all away. He thinks of you as he lies down on the cold big, was the bed always this big, bed. He hugs the pillow that you always used, and closed his eyes wishing it was you.

Gojo woke up to the smell of bacons. He blinked then quickly ran to the kitchen "Y/N?!" He was shocked to see not you, but his best friend? What was she doing here? "Oh! You're awake, here I made us breakfast." She says as she sets the bacon down on the table. "Umm.. What are you doing here?" Gojo remained standing away from her as she says "Well I heard that you got crazy wasted last night, so I came here! Not even a thank you??" She giggles but Gojo remained serious as he rubs the back of his neck "Look, Y/N and I got in a fight and- I think we should establish some boundaries." The girl looked at him shocked, like she was offended "Satoru I am your best friend. Who cares what that bitch thinks?? You guys are bound to break up anyway, besides" She went closer to Gojo and hugged his arm "you got me anyway" Gojo's blood ran cold. He was beyond disgusted not just by what she was saying, but by the fact that he never knew how she felt and that you were right. Gojo immediately threw her arm off in anger. He couldn't believe this. He felt betrayed. And oh how he wishes he could turn back time, he really fucked up this time. "What the fuck?? First of all fuck you for calling my girlfriend a bitch. Who the fuck do you think you are?? You think you're special?? Well you're not. Don't even think to compare yourself with Y/N. I don't fucking like you and I don't want to ever see you again" The girl ran out of his apartment crying in embarrassment. Gojo had to talk to you.

He drove fast to your apartment. And as if luck was on his side today, he saw you just about to enter the building. He quickly ran to you, catching your wrist gently. "Wait! Y/N." You looked at him as he tried to catch his breath. "Please, can we talk?"

You led him to your apartment, and as soon as the door closed, he hugged you tightly from behind "Please Y/N- I'm so sorry for everything that happened. It was entirely my fault and you were right, I was being an asshole for not listening to you. I'm sorry I made you feel that way, there's no excuse for what I did. But I promise I'll change, I- I'll never make the same mistakes again! I know this might be a lot but I hope you can give me another chance-" You burst out giggling "Satoru! Wait I- haha! stop! I'm ticklish!!" Gojo was so confused as to why you were laughing but then he realized he was subconsciously rubbing your sides, something that was so natural to the both of you "Oh! I'm sorry baby."

You and Gojo had a long serious talk that day, about how you felt, how sorry he was, and how he'll change for the better. It was a day full of crying, and to your surprise Gojo was crying even more than you, that you had to wipe his tears while he rests his head on your chest like a little puppy. Gojo made it a point for you to tell him everything, all the frustrations you had, and things you wished were better. You both established that communication is key.

"Are we okay now baby?"

"Hmmm.. I don't know... I think you're missing something though.."

"Okay just tell me babe, hm?"

"I didn't get any kisses"

The moment you said that Gojo's heart felt very warm, he felt home. He immediately tackled you on the couch with kisses on your cheek, neck, and lips. Your apartment was now filled with giggles, chuckles, and relief. You both had pizza delivered to your apartment, and after eating dinner you both are cuddled in your bed, him spooning you, arms wrapped around your waist, while you and him watch random tiktok videos on your phone. It was comforting. A few giggles here and there. Your back was against his chest and you shifted a bit to get more comfortable, unbeknownst to you, you rubbed your ass snug against his length.

Gojo noticed this, and now he was super aware of his surroundings. You smelled so good, just freshly out of the shower, you were so soft his hands began rubbing at your sides, up and down getting dangerously low to your ass, and high to your breast. He was getting hard, and subconsciously humping our ass. "I can feel you, you know" Gojo was taken aback, maybe this was too soon after your fight. "Oh sorry I-" He was cut off by your lips on his. He licked your bottom lip, asking for access in which you opened your mouth and deepened the kiss. His tongue caressed yours, as spit began dripping on both of your chins. The make out was getting too heated, and although he was a bit embarrassed by being hard rock just by a kiss, he got on top of you as he started to dry hump you. You felt him smirk in the kiss as he felt your pussy getting wet. He pulled away from the kiss, a line of saliva connecting the both of you "My pretty baby getting so wet for me, so good for me" He removed your top and circled your nipple with his tongue before sucking it gently, rolling it in between his lips. You were mewling and Gojo felt your hips grinding, your pussy hungry for relief. He removed your shorts as he sucked on your nipple, and traced your slit with his fingers, teasing you "Fuck you're so wet baby, such a good slut for me, yeah?" You were now moaning, wanting more of his touch "Ye-Yes please baby I want-I need it please. I missed you."

"I missed you too" Gojo rubbed fast circles on your clit, making your back arch and mouth turn into an "o", Gojo swore you looked like a goddess. He went down on you getting a good look at your pussy, how wet- how delicious it was. He licked up and down your slit, making you squirm so much that he had to hold your legs around his head. He licked your throbbing clit before taking it in and sucking and gently nibbling on it, making you scream in pleasure "Ah-! B-baby, right there-fuck! Feels so good baby!" Gojo kept licking and sucking your clit as his finger entered you. You let out a gasp as you moan when he rubbed your sweet spot, adding another finger in to give you more pleasure. "Baby-'Toru wait! I-I'm close! ah- nng! I'm cumming I'm cumming I'm cummin-!" You arched your back as you spasmed, your orgasm bringing you to heaven as you grind, fucking yourself on his tongue. Gojo felt like cumming seeing you like that, he could tell that his boxer was stained with his precum. He hurriedly removed his clothes, wanting to enter you now. His big cock hit his tummy as he removed his pants, head red and twitching dripping with precum. You spread your legs wider for him, arms reaching out as you say "Daddy please fuck me."

Gojo lost control and had only one thought, he wanted to cum in you. You both gasp as he pushed his cock in your pussy, walls hugging his cock tightly. He thrusted, hips bucking wildly as you moan out in pleasure, eyes rolling at the back of your head while your tongue lolled out your mouth. Gojo felt his cock twitching at the sight of your fucked out face, though he wasn't any better. His eyes were also rolling at the back of his head at the feeling of your wet tight hole. The bed was creaking and hitting the wall with how fast his pace was, but neither of you care. All you and Gojo could think about was each other in this moment. He kissed and sucked on your neck as you grip on his hair, legs locking on his hips. The lewd wet sound of skin slapping made you both feel very hot. "A-aah! D-daddy I'm I- ahh-! Baby p-please" "I know baby I-fuck-I know baby. Cum for me, cum for daddy, yeah?" He slipped his hands between the two of you and began to rub your clit fast. This pushed you over the edge and you came hard. Walls tightening and throbbing, Gojo was close to cumming too as he felt his balls rise. " I'm cumming baby- Fuck! I'm cumming-take it- take it all!" He raised your legs close to your chest, bending you as his cock hardened even more and twitched, letting out ropes of cum in your pussy. Gojo groaned as he came, eyes rolled to the back of his head while he let out breathy moans. He lay on top of you as he finished, both of you trying to catch your breath. He kissed you on the lips as you played with his hair. You both knew you had to clean up, you were both covered in sweat and slick, and so was the bed sheets. But you were both too tired to move, you guys had tomorrow after all right? With this comforting thought you both drift off to sleep, with Gojo's arms wrapped around your waist as he nuzzles your neck, and your hand resting on his hand while the other on his back.

You both slept peacefully, feeling content, complete.

a/n: hope y'all enjoyed i wasn't really planning on doing this but i had fun lol

@porridgesblog @remniriis

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