#san is a model but he's honestly so done with the industry and I get that

[gashface]

SHINE CONTESTANTS

Name: Mandy

Location: Futuristic San Myshuno

Age: 21

Pronouns: She/They

Story: So Mandy is a heavily cyber-augmented girl studying Robotics at the University in a cyberpunk reimagine of the Sims world. In the world she lives in, cyber modification is really common for everyone. She has glowing eyes and while she's usually depicted with a human skin tone she is entirely blue metal underneath. Her fave color is blue so she always has blue on her in some regard. She has albinism. She has a really wacky fashion style that usually consists of oddly matched silhouettes. She's really smart, hence robotics, but has the tenancy to speak without thinking. She LOVES singing and is working on a side music career as she studies, but is struggling to balance her newfound music popularity with her studies.

Created by: @skaterboisims

Name: Parker Winston

Location: Seattle

Age: 25

Pronouns: He/They

Story: My sim is Parker. He's genderfluid but prefers he/him and sometimes they/them. He grew up in a small, very religious town where being queer and loud weren't acceptable things. Being both, he decided to head for Seattle when he was old enough. He's an artist and has dabbled in anything creative he can get his hands on, from drag to tattooing to graffiti, he's done it all. Self-expression is the most important thing in the world to him and he shows that in his style, his art, and his hair dye. And though he likes to cling to his heavy grunge and emo styles, he's never met a color he didn't like or a pattern he wasn't willing to serve with all his heart.

"If I had to describe myself, it would be if like Barbie was in The Crow instead of Brandon Lee." - Parker

Created by: @morgynemberisagenderfluiddaddy

Name: Dillion Carter

Location: Houston, TX

Age: 25

Pronouns: No specific pronouns but they refer to themselves as They/Them, She/Her and He/Him, occasionally.

Story: Dillion's story starts with a graffiti-riddled alleyway. Being abandoned by well-known junkies, a screaming baby was found by the police and then placed into foster care. It was not easy for the first decade of their life. A lot of blood, betrayals, and fistfights were not lost. Eight homes returning her that used to be intrigued. No one had really wanted a child that would barely talk, but also not know when to give up and back down. Until one day, the Carter Family had taken them in as a preteen and had not returned them. It's been history ever since. The adopted family was black and Dillion was as pale as could be, but the whispers did not deter them from growing even closer and loving each other. Dillion's quiet yet useful, bold, and confident demeanour has landed them two jobs: a mechanic and underground boxer by day, and recommended by their sisters in the fashion industry— a model by night. It is those same sisters that had shown them the "Shine" modelling competition and convinced them that it was good exposure. That Dillion was worth so much more than what they had. Dillion responded with a smirk, a shrug, and a "Why not?" They'll just let their body speak for itself.

Created by: @mewo-ita

Name: Rin Miura

Location: Born in Mt. Komorebi but currently living in San Myshuno

Age: 19

Pronouns: She / Her

Story: rin's a college student, an aspiring fashion designer, but most importantly - a loser!! <3 She dreams of creating fashionable pieces for everyone in the world, but gets too caught up in the details, and gets way too carried away .. so she mostly just makes (insane-looking) clothes for herself. she thoroughly documents the entire creation process online; her other hobbies include doll collecting drawing pet training making music cooking baking building furniture and honestly just whatever the hell comes to her mind!!! shes very very happy-go-lucky, sweet but a bit airheaded and also VERY loud :3

Created by: @glittermutt

Name: Eli Sims

Location: Willow Creek

Age: 24

Pronouns: She/her

Story: Elizabeth Gil is the daughter of a famous fashion designer and a famous model, so she's known everything about the industry since she was very little. She always wanted to be a model like her mom and she would watch her during photoshoots and fashion shows. When her parents noticed her interest in the industry to started preparing her for her debut in it. Her first runway gig was at 15 years old for her father's spring couture show. She kept working under him for the next 3 years, barely catching a break, until she turned 18 and immediately left home and her career with her father's brand. She lost contact with her parents and nothing's been heard from her since then. In other news, the latest high-end model Eli Sims, known for her outstanding white hair, is opening the Chanel show at New York fashion week this evening, we wish her the best of luck!

A/N: yeah so basically my sim is a nepo baby that left her family,, changed her appearance and got back in the game all on her own. Her parents don't know she's modelling again, and every time her father has tried to get her on one of his shows she's declined, she does not wanna see them again bc of the awful way they treated her

Created by: @simsinfinitylt

Name: Ember Arendse

Location: San Myshuno

Age: 23

Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs

Story: Growing up in San Myshuno with a very artistically inclined and supportive family, Ember has always taken to all things creative. Lead singer and guitarist of ‘The Gutter Rats’, they always found comfort in expressing themselves in front of an audience, so though their area of expertise lies in freelance photography; They have been curious as to what it would be like to be in front of the camera.

Created by: @wolfrynn313

Name: Charline Morel

Location: Brindleton Bay

Age: 21

Pronouns: She/Her

Story: Charline "Charlie" Morel was born as the first of two daughters to an overly strict wealthy family. The Morels were a family of musicians, and every child born to the family was expected to be a musician, and those in the direct line were expected to inherit the family instrument manufacturing business (or whatever it was, Charlie really couldn't care less). Unfortunately, Charlie did not inherit her family's ear for music - she knew she wanted to be a creative soul, but honestly, she wasn't very good at any of it. Her parents forced her to take singing lessons because it was the only thing musical she was any good at, but she always wanted to do something else. She didn't know what that was until she graduated from high school - she wanted to model. She had tried taking pictures once, but quickly she realized she preferred being in front of the camera instead. So she packed up her belongings and moved out - not terribly far away, but out of her parents' clutches. Charlie is a stubborn, self-assured girl who is determined to prove herself and make a name in something other than music. Once she gets an idea in her head, she is determined to see it through to its finish - or crash and burn trying. (Even if her inner perfectionist cries out in terror at the prospect.)

Created by: @cyazurai

Name: Nicky Soufan

Location: San-Myshuno

Age: 19

Pronouns: she/her

Story: Since childhood, Nicky dreamed of becoming a model. The parents were not happy about this, because they thought that she would become a doctor like them, but they could not interfere with their daughter's desire and tried to help her in any way they could. At the age of 13, they sent her to a modelling school, where the girl stayed for 4 years. Not having received the proper result, the parents took Nicky out of there. She was in despair and did not know what to do now, because the modeling school took away from her all the desire to go to her dream. One day, Nika's friend, a photographer, invited her to his shooting to work on his hand. After this photo shoot, the girl again had a burning desire to become a model.

Created by: @rosamadchen

Name: Willow Young

Location: Willow Creek

Age: 30

Pronouns: she/her

Story: Willow is a new coming Simstuber. She is a mother of one & married to Irving Young. She loves to make art and travel and make woodwork. Willow is a very cheerful woman and she also loves taking photos. As friendly as she seems, she doesn't trust others easily. Willow hopes to become popular and rich. Willow always had an interest in modelling since she read magazines as a child.

Created by: @ohgeezhaddie

Name: Dawn Pepper

Location: StrangerVille

Age: 23

Pronouns: She/They

Story: Dawn is you typical 23 trying to branch out of her comfort zone. Her bold looks usually come from her bold and bizarre surroundings where she grew up. However as he daily part-time job in retail has completely bored her she finally wants to leave her comfort zone, meet new people, and explore new places!

Created by: @bigppton-jpeg

Name: Babylon Fleur Beppu.

Location: Glimmerbrook but was raised in Windenburg.

Age: 18

Pronouns: She/They

Story: Babylon is currently eighteen years old and was born on June 28, making her a Cancerian. Although she isn't aware, she is a fairy born of two ordinary townies. In my Sims Au, fairies are extinct and have been so for many years. She was born in Glimmberbrook but was raised in Windenburg.

Created by: @everythingaestheticlly

Name: Genie Fiorelli

Location: NO INFO PROVIDED

Age: NO INFO PROVIDED

Pronouns: She/Her

Story: NO INFO PROVIDED

Created by: @plumbobcrumble

Name: Su-Yen

Location: Korea

Age: 19

Pronouns: She/Her

Story: Su-yen is the youngest in a family full of models and actors. But Su-yen decided she wanted something else and tried to be a dancer. But now that she is a bit older she decided to follow in her mother's and older siblings' footsteps and do some modelling. The problem? Su-yen is reckless to the extreme. She is constantly injured from skating on trying to do stunts. She is often sporting bandages.

Created by: @dododoesstuffs

THANK YOU, EVERYONE, WHO ENTERED!

A FOLLOW-UP POST IS BEING SENT WITH FIRST WEEKS PROMPT!~

#Shine contestants #ts4 #sims 4 #SHINE #competition #HAVE TO POST IN GROUPS AS TUMBLR WONT LET ME PUT THEM ALL TOGETHER #sims 4 competition #sims4 #TS4 #sims4competition

[just-a-starfruit]

The Night Sky

This was my submission to the Ateez Storyboard Contest, unfortunately I didn’t make it through to the final voting, but I am proud of myself for even getting the courage to submit something in the first place. It’s been a few years since I’ve written for fun and not for a school assignment, but nonetheless I hope y’all still enjoy it:’) 

Also excuse me if this looks weird, I have never posted to tumblr, please have mercy on me.

Word Count: 1.3k

Warnings: None, but if there is one you feel I need to add, please let me know:)

Yeosang misses the sight of the stars, the city lights and crowded streets were never something he got used to, no matter how long he had lived in Seoul. He misses mapping those stars, and using them to navigate the Illusion over the vast expanse of the sky. 

 The very sky and stars his mother used to sing him to sleep under, and his father would tell him stories about. The sky was boundless, and full of mystery, but here it just felt like a cage. It felt wrong.

He huffs, pushing open the door to the 24 hour fried chicken take out restaurant he begrudgingly got a job at a year back. It’s not that he doesn’t love the food, hell, he could eat it any day without problem. It’s the stuffy environment, the unreliable coworkers, and the fact that his paycheck never seems to reflect his work. It certainly didn’t hold a candle to his previous occupation.

The only thing that keeps him working the graveyard shift here is that it’s the only job that would take a homeless barely legal teen, who definitely sounded drunk from all of the nonsense he was spewing. When he stumbled into the shop, yelling about how a masked man had taken their ship and he needed help. The employee shot him a weird look but took pity on the teen, and listened to him tell story upon story about the Illusion and it’s crew. They believed it to be fiction, oh, how wrong they were. 

Yeosang slept in the police station that night.

When he woke up, it was early in the morning, sunrise, and Yeosang was startled to not hear the crashing of waves or smell the salt of the air, or see the exact position of the sun in the sky. In a panicked haze, he cried out for help, and the officer on duty told him to settle down to no avail. Yeosang was shaking and sobbing, the unfamiliarity of the world he was in now too much to take in at once. 

When he finally calmed down enough to leave, he was handed a bottle of water by the officer, “Maybe head towards the hospital, get an IV for that nasty hangover.”

The boy just looked at him and left without a word. 

He ended up back at the chicken shop, and the employee who had helped him the night previously, ended up talking to a manager, to give the boy a job and let him crash on his couch if he needed. Yeosang accepted the offer gratefully, and slept there for a month or so, until he saved up the money to rent a shoebox apartment he learned was called a goshiwon. It wasn’t the ideal lifestyle, but it would have to do until he could find everyone else.

The sound of snapping jolts Yeosang out of his train of thought, and he’s met face to face with a not too happy looking man, “Oi, I’d like to order finally. These kids get more and more lazy.”

Trying his best to not roll his eyes in front of a customer, the ex navigator smiles and forces an apology, punching in the order.

It was about 3 in the morning before someone else came barreling through the door, and Yeosang peeled his eyes away from the spider web he had been idly watching for the past hour or so. Then his eyes widened.

“San?”

The man’s eyes met his, and recognition and relief washed over his face, 

“Yeosang! What in the name of selene are you doing here?”

“I should ask you the same, how have you been? What are you doing now? Most importantly, where did you end up?”

“I ended up in Japan, in an empty Shinjuku alleyway, but the moment I stepped into a crowded area, I was approached by a modelling agent. I had honestly no clue what was going on, so I accepted. That was four years ago though. I’m here for a photo shoot though.”

Yeosang nearly choked, “Four years? I’ve only been here two.” he then began to tell the former gunner about why he was in a dingy fast food restaurant on the outer streets of Seoul, working the graveyard shift. 

“So if you’re some budding big time model, where is your manager?”

“I ran.” San said, barely above a whisper, as if the walls had ears.

“You what now?” Yeosang was at a loss of words, his mouth gaping open like a hooked fish, gasping for air.

“You heard me, I jumped ship, I felt trapped, strangled by the public to be the new “it” boy of the new generation of models. Most of all, I felt homesick, Yeo, I miss the ocean, the crew, the adventure. None of that is here. So when we were at a redlight, I opened the door to the car and ran as fast as I could.” San stood up at some point, the two having sat at the lone table and chairs that occupied the shop before swapping stories. 

“I see. Have you seen any of the others? Have you heard anything about Hongjoong?”

The model shook his head, “You’re the only member of the crew I’ve seen, I’m sorry Yeo.”

An uncomfortable silence filled the room at the news. The strong headed Captain had gone missing just before the masked man arrived, sending the other seven members into wherever they are today. He had seemed distant that whole day before, it had set the crew into unease. About a week prior to his disappearance and Yeosang’s emergence into the modern world, they had a  meeting with their alters that had gone surprisingly well, finally making amends.

The thoughts of the masked man caused Yeosang to shiver. The build of the man was familiar, yet also alien, resembling one of the taller members, even if all of them were in the same room.

The idea of another set of the boys was a crazy thought, but not impossible, as seen by the black clad masked crew of bandits they met with.

San decided to go home with Yeosang when 5AM finally crawled around, despite the tired employee saying time and time again how small his room was. San didn’t care, anywhere but in the claws of his manager and the gaze of the public would do. 

When they entered the housing complex, Yeosang flipped on a small electric kettle resting on a counter, and set a plastic bag from his work next to it. From a small bin resting beneath the counter, he produced two cup noodles and disposable chopsticks. It was definitely different from what the escaped model was expecting, but he could care less, he was starving.

The kettle switched off when the water inside came to a boil, emitting a small amount of steam from the spout. Yeosang peeled open the lids of the noodle cups a little, and poured water into them, then placed the chopsticks on top of the lid to hold it down. He pulled out a pair of boxes from the plastic bag and popped open one of them to reveal wings from his work, then he handed San a cup noodle. 

“Sannie, while I do appreciate seeing you again, you’re sure I won’t get in trouble for harboring a valuable asset to your company?” He shoves a mouthful of noodles in his mouth and winces, he forgot to blow on them. 

“It’ll be fine, I’ll sweet talk my way out of either of us getting in trouble. I ditched my phone in the car, so it’ll take a while.”

He always was one to think ahead, and never made a move without carefully calculating his actions, even reckless ones. The two boys finished their meal in silence, cleaning up when they were finished.

It was an understatement to say Yeosang was relieved to see one of the members again, afterall it had been two years.

Two years of fear and loneliness in an unfamiliar world. As he closed his eyes, he saw the same image he had always seen: an hourglass with glowing sand frozen in place.

#I see people like to talk in the tags #that's pretty neat ngl #follow me on twitter @ hwalovely #Ateez #ateez storyboard #ateez au #ateez scenarios #kang yeosang #yeosang scenarios #kq entertainment #Yeosang is a tired part time worker #take this next tag with a grain of salt #ateez pirate au #ateez modern day au #wait san is in this too #choi san #kim hongjoong #san scenarios #san is a model but he's honestly so done with the industry and I get that #kpop #kpop boygroup #kpop bg #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #ateez imagines #ateez oneshot #omg i posted finally

[kenkamishiro]

20210218 Jack Jeanne Creator Interview with Famitsu - Interview #1 with Ishida Sui

The Jack Jeanne staff (Ishida Sui, Towada Shin, Kosemura Akira, Seishiro) were interviewed by Famitsu, a Japanese gaming magazine for Jack Jeanne’s release. Someone was kind enough to let me read it, so I’ll be translating the 4 interviews. The interview with Ishida I’ll do a full TL, and the other three I may do more of a summary since I’ve been busy lately.

Ishida Sui

Creator / Character Designer / Script Supervisor

Mangaka. From Fukuoka Prefecture. Creator of “Tokyo Ghoul” and “Tokyo Ghoul:re.” 2021 marks his 10th anniversary in the art industry.

Characters that were created based on the idea of “personifying plays”

Please share with us how you honestly felt when you received the commission request for this work.

That it seemed kind of questionable but interesting nonetheless. “If others can do it, I can too,” I thought.

How did fans react after Jack Jeanne was announced?

I still get letters from the readers of Tokyo Ghoul to this day, but some of them would bring up Jack Jeanne, or mention that they like a character and are interested in them even before the game’s release, so it makes me happy seeing that reception.

Please share with us your thoughts about being in charge of the character design.

It was a good learning experience because it was something I’d never done while working on my manga, trying to finalize the 6-member cast of the protagonist and the main characters, and then completely focusing on them as an elite squad. I tend to make too many characters, so...

When coming up with a character, how do you develop their image?

Previously, I decided it based on the character’s name and face. But with Jack Jeanne, it was a trial-and-error process. At first, I envisioned each character as a personification of a play - for example, Fumi was modelled off of “Salome”, Yonaga off of “Shintokumaru”, Shirota from one of Yamamoto Shūgorō’s works... I dropped the idea after that...and that’s how they were developed. They were created in a peculiar way this time.

Which character did you have the easiest time drawing, and on the flipside, which character did you find yourself struggling to draw?

Kai was the very first character I created, followed by Fumi. Those two I was able to draw relatively quickly. I wouldn’t really call this a struggle, but Suzu, the one with the red hair, wasn’t part of the main cast of six at first. Ootori, the blond character with the prickly personality, was actually part of the main cast at first, but since I wanted a simple-minded character, Suzu ended up being promoted.

I’m sure you consider every character your favourite, but if you had to pick only one character, who would it be?

Probably the main character Kisa. She embodies everything I think of in a shoujo manga protagonist, and I’m very fond of her. But I really do love all the characters. They each have their own appeal, so I can’t settle on just one.

Was there anything you had to constantly keep in mind when designing the characters for Jack Jeanne?

Broccoli specially requested that I give every character a strong colour palette. It’s because if I’m left to my vices, I end up using only subdued tones...I also constantly kept in my mind that I was making them look good-looking as boys.

You were also responsible for the event illustrations in the game. Could you give more details about them, and any difficulties that you faced?

For the event illustrations, I had to be aware of what scene would best match the script. Towada-san also specified where the illustrations should be inserted, but if there was a better scene before or after it, I gave priority to it instead. The hardest part...was drawing them all by myself. There ended up being more than 160 illustrations.

I heard it was you who requested Touyama Maki to design the chibi characters. Please share with us the appeal of the chibi characters drawn by Touyama-san, as well as your thoughts when you saw the chibi characters in the game.

Touyama-san’s appeal...is that their art is great! The deformed characters are perfectly balanced and outstandingly stable. I’m also a fan of their art and I like their life-proportion-size characters. It’s really cute seeing them move their tiny limbs around on the game screen.

Despite his humble abilities as an amateur lyricist, he oversaw every song with a burning passion that was second to none.

You supervised the game and the script, but what was the most memorable part of working on this game for you?

For starters, I vividly recall talking with Towada-san all the time. It was common for us to spend 10 hours a day talking to one another, several times a week.

How did production handled between the two of you for the script proceed?

I come up with the general outline. I’d talk about the overall flow and the key developments during the meetings, and Towada-san would take that and organize it, adding descriptions and colour to the details. It would have been impossible to create Jack Jeanne without her.

You wrote the lyrics to all the songs, including the opening song “Jack & Jeanne Of Quartz.” Please share with us how you came to be in charge of the lyrics.

Originally, there were several candidates, and there was even one person that I thought, “This person might be the one.” But I realized that it would take an enormous amount of time to share the understanding of my work to them, so I decided to give it a try, thinking that even an amateur would be the best for the job as long as they were passionate.

How did you come up with the lyrics?

I’m embarrassed to say this since I’m a complete amateur, but I tried my best to associate it with the feelings and information related to the subject, and whether it sounded good when sung...at any rate, I did my absolute best.

Are there any verses in the lyrics that you’d like people to pay special attention to, or any phrases that you really liked?

Avu-chan from Ziyoou-vachi (a 4-member rock band) is a friend of mine, but when I met up with her, I had her look at the lyrics, and the part she liked I also ended up liking. It’s the phrase “charcoal night grey” in the opening song. I also like the last two lines of the ending song because they represent the entirety of the game.

What was the most memorable interaction you had with the composer Kosemura-san?

He was professional in that every time, he exceed my expectations in what I wanted conveyed. We also spent about a week together (?) during the recording boot camp for the demo songs, and the time I spent sitting next to him and listening to the same songs was surreal. I couldn’t believe the person sitting next to me wrote the songs that I listened to as a student.

I want readers to like Kisa. A cover illustration filled with strong emotions.

On October 9, 2020 on Twitter, you tweeted, “Makin’ games is hard.” What was it you found difficult?

I was given a lot of decision-making authority as a producer, but since I’m a company outsider, I had a hard time making decisions without seeing the actual situation or making choices in areas where I had no insight. It was a tweet vexed from my inability to understand due to lack of experience. I wish I had more power...

What do you want people to pay attention to when they play the demo version?

I’d like people to pay attention to the fact that the art and script were created by very few people (almost two people), much like an indie game. Something like, “Ishida really drew all these characters!” or “Towada-san really wrote all the script!”...there is more to come in the full version.

You drew the cover illustration for this issue of the magazine, but I’d like to hear more details regarding this.

I drew it while reflecting on how lucky I was, like, “I’m really drawing for the magazine I’ve read since I was a kid...!?” I drew both male and female forms for Kisa, in the hopes that people would come to love the main character.

Please leave a message to your fans and readers who are eagerly awaiting the release of this game.

I made it so that players of all ages and genders can enjoy the game. There is a lot more in store besides just the illustrations. I hope you will play it!

#Jack Jeanne #Ishida Sui #translations #the others i will get to next week

[stormra]

For Osomatsu-san: How would the brothers treat their S/O, who’s a popular musician but has to travel around all the time (tours, concerts, etc)? Would they come with their S/O? Or stay and support them from afar because they don’t want to get in their way?

❝ 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐧𝐨 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐩𝐨𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐒/𝐎

— type : headcanons

— characters : the matsuno brothers

     

𝙊𝙎𝙊𝙈𝘼𝙏𝙎𝙐  : 

❧     While he’d support you and love you unconditionally regardless of what you want from him, he’d definitely want to leech off of your successes. You can expect him to instantly say yes upon being asked to travel with you. Staying home wouldn’t even be a consideration for an array of arguably stupid reasons that read as follows:

❧     “It’s no big deal! What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine, baby~”

❧     However, if you’re into being a less-official version of a sugar Mommy/Daddy/Parent, you might not care about him tagging along and using you for your money/fame. At least he loves you? Just look at it that way! Osomatsu isn’t all that bad.

❧     Sure, he’s greedy, but he’s not extremely selfish. He’d recognize that you have feelings that deserve to be acknowledged. Besides, we all know he doesn’t think very highly of himself in the first place. 

❧     He’d love to listen to you play/sing for him and would often go out of his way to watch you perform. While he might not know much about music, he’d value your dedication, as he has exactly 0 ounces of that mystical concept. Knowing that the people he loves are successful is euphoric.

❧     If you show him off to the public or so much as walk around with him in public, expect him to die. He wouldn’t be focused on suddenly gaining fame and popularity like some others would. Instead, he’d be stuck on the fact that you, a popular musician, chose to show the world that you belong to him and that he belongs to you... just a lowly NEET dating someone exponentially more successful. Something about that would warm his heart and make him feel valued for once.

❧     Did someone say he’d finally accept his identity? He’s constantly having internal crises. Your presence would only solidify his existence.

❧     While he wouldn’t be much of a comforting boyfriend, he’d pose as a great distraction. The celebrity life can get rather tiresome; Osomatsu would recognize this without a problem. Instead of coddling or comforting you, he’d use his childish nature to distract you from the stresses of the music industry, influencing you to take breaks and lazy days with him.

❧     He’d constantly ask to be in any sort of photo shoots you may have. He just wants to pose in funny positions with you! 

𝙆𝘼𝙍𝘼𝙈𝘼𝙏𝙎𝙐 :

❧     While Karamatsu wouldn’t exactly want to stay home in order to keep himself from making things harder for you, he’d do so if you asked or made it clear that you’d prefer such an option. If you’d expect him to ask, no. He’s far too polite to do that. 

❧     It’s important to note that he considers himself to be a bit of a musician as well. Therefore, he’d be even more compelled to go with you, but, again, he’d never ask. You’d have to ask him and express a trillion times that you actually want him to tag along. 

❧     This might sound like a stretch, but that grandiose act he loves so much? It would disappear rapidly with the knowledge that so many people could learn of his existence just by dating you. Without even being the celebrity in the relationship, he’d crack under pressure, reverting back into the timid, people-pleasing man he truly is. Get ready to have some fun teasing him and/or helping him establish true confidence. 

❧     Expect a lot of praise to fall from his lips. He would admire your successes without being overbearing. In fact, you’d inspire him. A lot. You can also expect a lot of his own songs to center around your success and beauty.

❧     Honestly? Give him musical advice! He’d accept it wholeheartedly; especially if it comes from someone like you. Your career would influence him to grow and learn from his mistakes in the field. You might have a model singer as a boyfriend before the end of the tour! While giving him critique, be sure to praise him just as much. He loves you endlessly, but lots of critique with little praise will leave him feeling a bit insecure. However, I’m sure you know this, as this aspect of his character is far from unnoticeable. Be gentle with him. He deserves it!

❧     If you imagine playing/singing duets with him, you’re on the right track. He’d love to sing for you and hear you sing with him in return. The same can be said for any instrument you may happen to play. He’d eat it right up! You’re his everything, after all.

❧     Will wear your merch—especially merch with your face on it. Please wear his tank top with his face out of respect.

𝘾𝙃𝙊𝙍𝙈𝘼𝙏𝙎𝙐 :

❧      Although some would assume he’d want to stay home for your sake, as he calls himself the most “responsible” brother, I know it wouldn’t be anything like that. Have you seen the way he acts around Nyaa-chan? This guy would ask you daily, disguising his motives with innocent claims. He’s a tricky bastard who should never be underestimated.

❧     “I only want to make sure everything goes smoothly for you!”

❧     “Don’t you need an assistant? Emotional support?”

❧     “If you don’t want me to come, I understand, but I think this could be a learning experience for the both of us!”

❧     While he would be more than willing to be your crutch and sense of normalcy, for he isn’t heartless, we all know he has a weird thing for idols and that would primarily spawn his desire to travel on tour with you. It doesn’t matter if you’re nothing like the idol he praises. You’re close enough and that’s undeniably attractive to him. 

❧     The fact that he’s even dating a musician is enough to scare him. Can you imagine how he’d act traveling with one? Pushy and controlling, you’d hardly catch a break, as he’d be riding your ass to get things done and to take care of yourself. If you like that sort of thing, good for you. If you don’t, then you’d need to talk to him about it. Although executed with good intentions, his overbearingness can be... well, overbearing. 

❧     Please keep him humble. As we know his ego is the size of the sun, he’d willingly or unwillingly use your existence as his partner to set himself apart from his brothers. Again, we know he already thinks very highly of himself, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he started using your relationship as a boost to get ahead of his “worthless” siblings. 

❧     “I’m dating a musician and you five can’t even get jobs!” 

❧     However, he’d never you to show him off to the public.

❧     On a more wholesome note, as I feel bad for giving him mostly negative headcanons, his doting-ness would be welcomed as well as detested. On your bad days, he’d be there to comfort you and offer objective solutions. Albeit uncharismatic, he’s rather skilled at speaking and getting his words across when they need to be conveyed properly.

❧     He buys all of your merch and wears the shirts everywhere. Really. 

𝙄𝘾𝙃𝙄𝙈𝘼𝙏𝙎𝙐 :

❧     It would take a lot of convincing on your behalf if you desperately want this man to travel with you.

❧     The threat of exposing himself to the public is a deep-rooted fear that keeps him from doing simple things within his mundane life—so one can only imagine the stress that would sit on his shoulders in an environment such as the celebrity one. He’d constantly find himself within ruts and deep pits, trying to stay out of the spotlight. 

❧     In that case, he’d be staying home. Let him stay home. However, the problems wouldn’t end there, so you best be on your toes.

❧     Jealousy can overrun the best of us. Ichimatsu couldn’t stomach the idea of going with you in the first place, but that wouldn’t stop the intrusive thoughts telling him that you’d end up leaving him for another musician who is leagues more talented and better looking. This obviously wouldn’t be your fault; he’s always been disgustingly insecure. A lot of communication would need to be reached: such as phone calls and texts. Although he wouldn’t be clingy, he’d need some frequent reassurance that you, in fact, love him. Praise him for being so sweet for you. Call him handsome as you FaceTime. Hell, write a short song for him. 

❧     On another note, you as a musician would literally be his northern star. As a man so shrouded in negativity, seeing you, a person who can communicate feelings through fingers or a voice, shining like the sun whilst on a stage surrounded by thousands, would leave his soul feeling all light and fuzzy. The mere thought that his partner is someone so ethereal would bring him some form of internal peace.

❧     He’d listen to your music every night. It’s how he’d fall asleep. 

❧     Surprisingly, he’d be the best at comforting you and helping you stay grounded. He knows what it feels like to feel hopeless. 

❧     Sing him to sleep over the phone! If you play an instrument, play for him! Oddly enough, he’d have one of the most prominent adorations for your musical skill out of his brothers. Something about it just warms his heart. You’d impress him to no end and inspire him to try and do something with his life. 

❧     He’d name one of his cats after a song of yours! 

𝙅𝙔𝙐𝙎𝙃𝙄𝙈𝘼𝙏𝙎𝙐 :

❧     Undoubtedly, he’d be the most eager to travel out of his brothers. He’d ask you daily, jumping up and down like a hyper puppy. He’d hardly have a reason as to why he’d like to go, but something about it would forever and always appeal to him for some unspoken reason. He might just crave adventure and some excitement. 

❧     Are we really surprised?

❧     Identical to a dog, he’d beg. He’d ask with various bone-crushing hugs and weird stares that are hard to deny. He’s not exactly the brightest, but he’s cute and knows it. No, he’s not manipulative, but if he wants to go, he’ll sure try his best to convince you to take him with you. 

❧     He compares you to Karamatsu a lot. In good ways, of course. 

❧     Upon letting him travel with you, he’d be one of the best distractions on a bad day. Of course you can’t silence discomfort by just “being happy”, but Jyushimatsu sure likes to make you laugh even on your darkest days. He’d be a great listener that lets you spill all of your darkest worries as an artist. He wouldn’t give the best advice, but his presence would be an award in it of itself. Like Osomatsu, his childish nature is a breath of fresh air. He’d also be remarkably skilled at reading how you feel. 

❧     Undoubtedly the loudest supporter at your performances. Will go out of his way to make sure his voice is the one you hear screaming over a sea of thousands. Also, I can’t promise he won’t tackle-hug you after performances, let that be offstage or onstage. Be ready! 

❧     He’d love wearing your merch—specifically oversized t-shirts with your face on them! Much like Karamatsu, he thinks that’s all sorts of romantic and cute. He could care less about being viewed as weird. 

❧     There’s no way you can keep Jyushimatsu out of the public eye. He loves you and he loves having fun! The poor guy would probably have a hard time understanding why he shouldn’t tackle you in front of your fans. Your best bet is to establish some boundaries and come to a conclusion that works best. If I’m being honest, he’d be a harmless public partner. He’s just all smiles and laughter... mostly. (:

𝙏𝙊𝘿𝙊𝙈𝘼𝙏𝙎𝙐 :

❧     Ultimately, this little bastard is hard to read. He can either be the sweetest man to ever grace the Earth or the most devilish and selfish.

❧     He’d tell you he doesn’t need to go on tour with you, but the answer he’s looking for is a yes. He enjoys playing “hard to get” and wants to come off as responsible and kind. Much like Choromatsu, he knows how to play his social cards and will do what he can to seem like a perfectly indecisive partner who is “totally okay with whatever you want.” That’s a lie. If you wouldn’t allow him to travel with you, he’d try to give you reasons as to why you should let him go. He’s complicated and I won’t sugarcoat that. You’ll find that I try to be realistic with these heavily romanticized NEETs. 

❧     Regardless, if and when he goes on tour with you, except to have yet another mini assistant. He’d always try to offer fashion tips and elements of which you should include in your songs to appeal to the public. Although a NEET, he’d have a strong idea of what the fans are looking for and what you could do to be more appealing. However, he’d understand if you’d like to keep up with your own thing and stray from conforming. He’d be fine with whatever you want, but that wouldn’t stop his opinions and tips. Maybe he should become a musician. 

❧     He’d get fussy over not having enough of your attention. His degree of fussiness wouldn’t become overbearing, but it’s always important to acknowledge the feelings of your partners to reach a conclusion. Remind him that you love him and he’ll eventually come around. 

❧     Easily the best advice-giver. Can both solve your problems or be the shoulder you cry on. He’d be fantastic at helping you through the trials and tribulations that come from being a musician. While he might seem apathetic, he really isn’t and understands just how pressuring expectations can be. This star of hope has seen some things.

❧     Although it may seem easy to assume he’d only be there for the fame, that wouldn’t be his only motivator. He’d truly want to see his beloved grow beyond others. His confidence will skyrocket whilst on tour with you.

❧     He’d design most of your merch: very minimalist designs that fit in with almost all aesthetics. When all is said and done, he’d wear the clothes with pride. What a dork.

❧     Likes to post pictures of you with him on his social medias. 

#headcanons #headcanon #osomatsu san #ososan #osomatsu san headcanons #ososan headcanons #osomatsu #karamatsu #choromatsu #ichimatsu #jyushimatsu #todomatsu #osomatsu san content

[bluewatsons]

V. B. Dubal, An Uber Ambivalence: Employee Status, Worker Perspectives, & Regulation in the Gig Economy, UC Hastings Research Paper No. 381 (2019)

Introduction

Before beginning to work for Lyft in 2013, Kevin Banks1 spent 25 years as a unionized carpenter in Northern California. He made “pretty dang good money”2 working in construction, especially after his promotion to general foreman. But Kevin was badly injured on the job, and the timing of the injury coincided with the Great Recession. A white, native-born American who came from a union family, Kevin had never performed non-union, low-wage work, but by 2009, his job choices were limited. With a trace of resigned shame in his voice, he disclosed in one of our conversations over coffee,

My old man was a union painter...my wife is a fourth generation Longshoreman. There was no me not being in the union, period. I used to – honestly, I used to make fun of Walmart workers and all that...until the Recession hit. And then I couldn’t find a job anywhere, doing anything. I went back to school, I got my construction management degree...It was like alright, let���s move it up. Nothing. Still isn’t any [work].3

After the stint in school, Kevin turned to truck driving, working as a putative independent contractor for the first time in his life. He purchased a semi-truck and drove all over the country for a company whose business model was analogous to the one later used by labor platform companies Uber and Lyft; he bore all the risk and costs traditionally associated with running a business. The money was low and unpredictable. Sometimes, Kevin told me, after expenses, he would end a haul with just $100, not enough to justify being away from his wife and small daughter for long periods of time. After several unhappy years driving cross country, years that took a toll on his body and on his family, a friend told Kevin about Lyft. Kevin and his wife researched the company, which had been around for roughly one year, and based on Lyft’s advertised wages, they determined that he should sell his truck, lease a sedan, and switch jobs. As a Lyft driver, he could make more money, have a flexible schedule, and be a more present parent and husband.

At first, Kevin said, things were good; he enjoyed being able to spend more time with his child and only drove while his daughter was at school. For several months, he made enough to meet his expenses. But as Uber and Lyft recruited more drivers, thereby increasing supply, the companies also dropped driver commissions. Kevin was getting fewer fares and earning less for each one. Almost overnight, his income became unpredictable and insufficient. Kevin described a few weeks in late 2015—one and a half years into working for Lyft—when the insecurities of his work made him think drivers needed to organize to form collective power.

So, when they [Uber and Lyft] started dropping the prices in this price war, and I just kept working more and more and more to where I’m going, I’m working 60, 70 hours a week. You know, over Christmas, I worked what, 60 hours every week. But the last week of December, and by the time all my expenses were done, I had $200 leftover. So, my family for Christmas presents got to go to Star Wars, that’s it. No popcorn, you know, because it’s $30 to get into the movies...It was the rate cuts. That’s how I realized we needed to get together as drivers.4

In his quest to organize Uber and Lyft drivers who could collectively demand that the companies raise and stabilize their wages, Kevin reached out to the Teamsters. Like other unions in early 2016, the Teamsters Joint Council 7 in Northern California was hesitant to invest in the organization of gig workers without a legal decision on their worker status.5 If drivers were found to be independent contractors, a union helping to organize them might run afoul of anti-trust laws and could be held liable for price-fixing, a huge legal and financial risk.6

Unwilling to support Kevin’s vision of collective driver power with sustained organizing resources, the Teamsters asked if he wanted to be involved in a lawsuit against Lyft. Kevin agreed to file an official objection in a proposed settlement to Cotter v. Lyft7, a major wage and hour class action filed in the federal district of Northern California. Nationally, at this early stage in the tech- enabled gig economy, the labor community had looked to a decision in Cotter (and a sister lawsuit filed against Uber, O’Connor v. Uber8) to settle the matter of how workers in the gig economy should be classified. Many saw a legal decision in favor of employee status as not only providing a safety- net for workers in the ride-hailing industry, but also as a way to slow the expansion of the app-based, contractor business model into other sectors of the service economy.9

Kevin said that like the Teamsters, he wanted a decision in Cotter, and not a settlement: “The settlement money isn’t that big of a deal...it’s not going to help in the long run.”10

“You think employee status will help you in the long run?” I asked. “Oh, I don’t want to be an employee,” Kevin answered. “Really?!” I gasped, “Then why did you object to the settlement?”11

Kevin explained that he appreciated why others wanted employee status; he, too, wanted many of the benefits associated with employment including a wage floor, reimbursement for his vehicle expenses, and the right to unionize. He had objected to the settlement in Cotter because he was furious at the company for “robbing him.”12 It was an act of resistance and rebellion. But Kevin also wanted the “freedom and flexibility” that he associated with being a “real” independent contractor, “I want to be able to go, you know, take my daughter fishing on Wednesday in the summer instead of going to work if I want.”13 He was worried about the kinds of rules Lyft might impose if they thought of themselves as his employer. Would he get fired for taking the day off? Would he be forced to work in the afternoon when his daughter came home from school?

According to survey-based research, the majority of drivers for labor platforms Uber and Lyft share Kevin’s stated preference for independent contractor status. Many gig companies have leveraged these findings to justify their opposition to both employment regulations and their fierce defense of lawsuits alleging misclassification. For example, in an opinion piece in USA Today timed to oppose AB5, an internationally-heralded 2019 California bill crafted to deter misclassification of workers in the gig economy, Uber’s general counsel wrote, “[D]rivers tell us in focus groups and surveys [that] they don’t want to be employees.”14 In another major class action lawsuit against Uber, O’Connor v. Uber, the company submitted to the record 400 sworn statements from drivers saying that they did not want to be employees.15 To date, these findings and assertions have played a powerful role in averting the regulation of gig work as employment.16

The results of my survey research on Uber drivers who work in San Francisco, conducted between February 2016 and August 2016, affirmed this data and the gig companies’ assertions about driver preference. Regardless of gender, immigration status, and whether Uber driving was their only, primary, or supplemental job, a majority of Uber drivers stated they preferred to be independent contractors. Despite this, grassroots ride-hailing driver associations in California supported and even advocated for the passage of AB5, affirming driver commitment to employee status as a path to economic security and resistance.

How can we explain this discrepancy between drivers’ stated preferences and their advocacy? What do perspectives like Kevin’s tell us about how drivers make sense of employee status in relationship to their lives and visions for the future of their work? And how might understanding these perspectives impact how regulators approach worker status in the tech-enabled gig economy? Consistent with the complexity of Kevin’s relationship to employee status, my extensive qualitative investigations troubled the survey data. Over 50 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Uber drivers and three years of ethnographic engagement with drivers’ advocacy groups in the San Francisco Bay Area revealed that gig workers were not of one mind about employment.17 Drivers understood employee status simultaneously as a potential source of stability and resistance and a source of fear and subjection.

To make sense of the contradictory findings between driver narratives and survey data, I draw on the social psychology and sociology literature on cognitive conflict.18 Rather than approach driver perspectives towards employment as bidimensional, as existing survey research has done, my ethnographic data uncover the complexity of drivers’ views on the concept in an antecedent context—that is, before employee status has been enforced and experienced. I argue that the paradoxes embodied in the perspectives of workers like Kevin can be theorized as attitudinal ambivalence. This ambivalence toward employee status was informed both by their relative powerlessness in relation to gig companies and by the uncertainties and insecurities specific to app- based gig work. Overwhelmingly, drivers both wanted employee benefits and feared how the companies might behave as an employer. This attitudinal ambivalence of drivers towards employment holds implications for both organizing in the gig economy and for the future regulation of work.

This Chapter proceeds in three parts. Part I provides an overview of the existing definitional debates in legal scholarship on the legal identities of gig workers. I argue that scholarship proposing refinements on the prevailing legal tests for employee status generally fail to account for the legally inscribed ability of businesses to re-shape their business models and evade employment obligations. They also reflect an understanding of employment as a natural fact, rather than a historically contingent phenomenon. In contrast, the ABC test—codified in California employment laws in 2019 by a bill referred to as AB5—shifts the focus of the legal inquiry to enforcement, thereby confronting the ability of businesses to avoid liability to and for their workers.

With the legal debates as backdrop, Parts II and III analyze select empirical findings from multi-method research on Uber drivers in San Francisco between 2016 and 2019. In Part II, I situate my survey data amidst the existing research on driver preference and then contrast these findings with worker narratives. Drivers in my ethnographic research took seriously their subjection to and by gig companies, but they also imagined and aspired to the possibility of better and more stable work lives, sometimes through the medium of employee benefits. Part III also draws on deep qualitative investigation, including participant observation, to consider how driver ambivalence towards employee status was managed by California drivers’ groups who advocated for employment status in the context of AB5. Specifically, I examine how a membership-based, driver-led group of gig workers, Rideshare Drivers United, engaged worker ambivalence about employee status and mobilized support for the bill.

Finally, the Conclusion considers implications of these empirical findings for regulators. Given the complicated ambivalence of gig workers towards employee status, this research suggests that the bi-dimensional inquiry on gig worker preference for employee or independent contractor status is the wrong question. Gig workers in the app-based ride-hailing industry uniformly desire the benefits traditionally associated with employment, but the subjection associated with employee status has produced anxieties. Rather than re-shape employment laws and restrict worker benefits to accommodate the policy prescriptions of app-enabled gig companies, regulators may use these research findings to expand the benefits available through the traditional employment regime. For example, in attending to the need that many workers have for time flexibility, regulators could inscribe scheduling autonomy into the panoply of benefits available to labor platform workers.

I. Legal Tests for Employee Status: Subjectivity, Power, and Enforcement

The legal test for employee status has been a subject of increasing debate since the New Deal when safety net protections were inscribed through employment, significantly increasing the costs of doing business in the U.S.19 Not until the late 1940s, however, did Congress, by statute, carve “independent contractors” out of the protections afforded by employment and labor laws.20 By the late 1970s, the independent contractor carve-out in work laws had begun to incentivize changes in business models in many industries, including the taxi and trucking trades.21 In 2012, labor platform companies Uber and Lyft built upon and expanded these business models.22 Using app technologies, they grew the number of people working as independent contractors.23 The rapid, high growth of these companies and the number of workers laboring without employment protections in turn spawned an entire genre of scholarship on the legal test to determine employee status.

Much recent scholarship focused on finding the “correct” test for employee status refines or builds upon the major tests that have been developed in courts and legislatures over the past forty years.24 The two tests (and versions thereof) currently used for federal employment protections attempt to capture some essential truth about employment with little regard to the legislative purpose of the work protections. The root of most legal tests for employee status—the common law of agency test—examines the putative employer’s control over the “means and manner” of a worker’s performance.25 The more a worker is controlled in how they conduct their work, the more likely a decision maker is to find that the worker is an employee.26 The majority of federal and state employment laws currently reflect some version of this test. Another, more recent test, is the “entrepreneurial potential” test which was articulated in 2009 by the D.C. Circuit in FedEx Home Delivery v. NLRB27, and in 2019, by the NLRB in Supershuttle DFW, Inc.28 In this test, used to decide whether or not workers have the rights ascribed to employees under the National Labor Relations Act (including the right to collective organizing and bargaining), the more “entrepreneurial opportunity” workers have for financial gains and losses—even if the opportunity is never realized—the more likely the worker is to be an independent contractor.

Courts and legal decision-makers who have applied these tests to determine employee status have alluded to how they capture an underlying “truth” about employment. For example, in Estrada v. FedEx29, an appellate court decision holding that FedEx drivers were employees, the decision included a now famous line: “The drivers look like FedEx employees, act like FedEx employees, are paid like FedEx employees, and receive many employee benefits....if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.”30 But y ears of inconsistent legal outcomes expose how the application of such tests reflect the subjectivity of decisionmakers.31

Indeed, Julia Tomassetti has shown through empirical research, whether a worker is determined to be an employee by the NLRB has depended on whether the administration is Democratic or Republican.32 Thus, even when factors to be considered in analyzing control are clearly delineated, application of the prevailing legal tests has not resulted in consistent outcomes. As Deepa Das Acevedo has argued, sometimes and for some people “control” is interpreted as non-interference at work, and in other moments, that non-interference is more accurately about non-domination.33 In both instances, perceptions of employee status hinge on subjective ideas and experiences of freedom.

Another reason that tests for employee status have frequently failed to protect workers is because of their post-hoc approach. The means and manner of control test is sometimes useful in capturing violations where employers attempt to “fly under the radar.” However, historically, a number of employers have attempted to “fly over” enforcement. By this I mean that employers have used their power—both structural and instrumental—to either create statutory exceptions for themselves in the law or to change their business models to conform to the tests, even after being found in violation of the law. With this in mind, Noah Zatz has argued that the legal root of the misclassification problem is not in the application of these tests, but in the fact that the tests and refinements to them “fail to confront employers’ power to shape their business practices to substitute contracting for employment...”34 As I have shown elsewhere, even in cases where employers were found in violation of employment laws through misclassification of their workers, those employers used the court’s legal decision as a roadmap to “more accurately” define their workers as independent contractors.35 In some instances, this has increased the precarity of workers’ lives instead of providing them with employment protections.36

A nascent test for employee status—the ABC test—has attempted to account both for the subjective nature of other employee status tests and for the power of companies to re-write their business models to evade enforcement. Although different versions of the test exist, the ABC test as articulated by the California Supreme Court and later codified into California employment laws by AB5 creates a presumption of employment and puts forth a conjunctive three-part test for hiring entities who wish to classify their workers as independent contractors.37 In order to get out from under the employee presumption, the hiring entity must prove that the workers are (a) free from control, (b) performing work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business, and (c) engaged in an independently established trade of the same nature as the work performed.38 The most exacting aspect of the ABC test is, of course, prong B. Whether or not this test will prevent gig companies from re-making themselves to get out from under the law remains to be seen.

II. Theorizing Ambivalence: Desires and Fears about Employee Status

In this section, I turn to empirical data on driver perspectives on employee status. For context, I begin with a short discussion of my previous ethnographic study of workers in the San Francisco taxi industry. In comparison to Uber drivers between 2016-2019, taxi workers in San Francisco in the years immediately preceding the advent of Uber and Lyft harbored fairly consistent feelings about employee status. This comparison is useful because it underscores the degree to which worker preference for or against employee status is situationally variable and may be contingent upon any number of job-specific factors including economic uncertainty and lack of access to transparent decision-making structures.

Following this discussion of worker preference in the antecedent gig economy, I examine both existing survey data on Uber driver preferences for and against employee status and my own survey data, gathered amongst San Francisco Uber drivers in 2016. A majority of drivers in all survey studies—including my own—stated a preference for independent contractor status. But I argue that as an empirical instrument, the survey—for a number of reasons discussed herein— cannot capture the complex desires, fears, and visions of workers on this issue. 

Narratives derived from three years of ethnographic research amongst Uber drivers and driver groups and over fifty semi-structured qualitative interviews reinforce this critique. Using worker voices and life stories, I argue that Uber drivers do not have a unidimensional, but rather complex, ambivalent relationship to employee status. This ambivalence, I show, arises from the conflict between their need for the stability offered by employment benefits and protections, and their fears about their perceived powerlessness in relationship to gig companies.

A. The Taxi Gig Economy

In a series of articles stemming from an earlier ethnographic and historical project on the San Francisco taxi industry in the decades preceding the advent of ride-hailing apps Uber and Lyft, I revealed how the employee and independent contractor categories for taxi workers were “meaningful not just for employment regulation, but also for worker identities and collectivities on the ground.”39 After taxi companies shifted from an employee-based business model to independent contracting, forcing the de-unionization of the taxi industry in the late 1970s, San Francisco taxi drivers formed worker groups to protect their interests.40 For decades, a central locus of debate among drivers in these groups was whether or not to fight for reclassification as employees.41

Through an extensive examination of historical documents and interviews, I showed how this issue was divisive among taxi drivers. Many immigrant and racial minority drivers, in particular, valued their independent contractor status and the practice of long-term leasing because of the structural control and scheduling freedom it permitted. These drivers sometimes relished “the promises of social mobility engendered by the ‘entrepreneur’ identity” that they associated with being an independent contractor.42 In contrast, non-migrant white taxi drivers—especially those of an older generation—longed for and fought for employee status, believing that employment would bring stability, professionalism, and dignity back to their work.43 This divisive approach to worker status amongst a diverse workforce frequently fractured attempts at building collective worker power.

In making sense of the steadfastness of individual workers in their perspectives on worker status in this antecedent gig economy, the regulatory framework in the taxi industry is an important backdrop. Until the advent of Uber and Lyft, San Francisco taxi drivers, though treated as independent contractors for most employment protections, benefited from relative economic stability and predictability.44 Due to municipally controlled vehicle caps and regulated fares, which were enacted in response to union advocacy during the Great Depression, drivers in the post-union taxi economy had low but predictable incomes.45 Since the taxi industry was locally regulated as a semi-public utility, drivers had regular access to city regulators and the ability to shape the rules governing their work.46 The Police Commission and later the Taxi Commission oversaw the rules governing the industry, met weekly, and made decisions in transparent public fora, always with input and advocacy from the driver community.47

In contrast to other gig workers, San Francisco taxi drivers had an unusual degree of involvement on the industry regulations that shaped their everyday work lives, some safety net protections, and a degree of economic security. During economic downturns, taxi drivers lobbied the city to re-calibrate taxi supply and fares so as to increase driver income. Although cab companies could terminate workers “at will,” drivers could appeal any decision to take away their occupational license. And while drivers did not have access to the minimum wage or the right to unionize, they could, as a result of a 1996 lawsuit, file for unemployment insurance if laid off and workers’ compensation if injured on the job. 48

In sharp contrast to this earlier moment in the ride-hailing industry, Uber and Lyft drivers in my research had very limited access to state regulators, endured high on-the-job risk, and suffer with an unpredictable income. They experienced plummeting wages and an ever-fluctuating supply of competing vehicles on the road. Long-term drivers in my research said that from 2014-2019, their incomes dropped by roughly 60 percent. Drivers also reported being unfairly terminated—or deactivated—sometimes permanently. Unlike taxi drivers, Uber and Lyft drivers absorbed the erratic costs and risks of driving all the time—including hybrid insurance, wear and tear on their vehicle, and the costs and income-loss associated with accidents. This comparison helps to explain why driver preferences for independent contractor status were relatively stable in the taxi industry, and why that changed so dramatically in the app-based gig economy.

B. Survey Data on Gig Driver Preferences for Worker Status

1. Literature Review of Survey Research on Uber Drivers’ Classification Preferences

Given the backdrop of sometimes extreme Uber driver insecurity, observers—both scholars and regulators—have been surprised by survey data suggesting that drivers are satisfied with their relationship to Uber as independent contractors. In this section, I appraise the existing scholarly research on the issue and also present data from my own survey of Uber drivers in San Francisco.

The most influential scholarship to date on Uber driver preference is a piece written by economists Jonathan Hall and Alan Krueger based on research.49 Hall and Krueger concluded based on survey research conducted in 2015 and paid for by Uber that roughly 79% of U.S. Uber drivers preferred independent contractor status to employee status.50 The data has been cited in a variety of regulatory contexts to deter employment regulations.

The specific question survey question was as follows,

Which of the following would you most prefer regarding your driving with Uber: being classified as an employee of Uber so you could be eligible for a minimum wage, health care and other benefits, but you would not have the flexibility to set your own schedule; or being classified as an independent contractor for Uber so you would have the flexibility to set your own schedule, but you are not eligible for a minimum wage, health care or other benefits?

The outsized role this data has had on policy discussions on the rights of gig workers prompted two academics employed at the ILO—Janine Berg, an economist, and Hannah Johnston, a geographer—to probe the survey. In a peer-reviewed comment, Berg and Johnston concluded that the Hall and Krueger article is “fraught with methodological problems including sample bias, leading questions, and selective reporting findings.”52 The question on worker status preference, for example, Berg and Johnston point out, is double-barreled, “forcing respondents to answer two questions at once when their opinions about the two may diverge.”53 Indeed, drawing on this critique, I argue that the question also obfuscates the law and communicates a falsehood to survey participants. Although many employees in the U.S. have an inflexible schedule, employee status is not fundamentally incompatible with scheduling flexibility, as the question appears to claim.

A more recent peer-reviewed study conducted, in part, by two economists employed by Uber, found that only a minority of Uber drivers in the United Kingdom surveyed in 2018 desire employee status.54 The economists found correlations between flexibility, self-employed status and subjective well-being that they suggested meant that “[m]ost individuals selecting into such arrangements—at least on the Uber platform—seemingly have strong preferences for autonomy and scheduling flexibility.”55 Like the Hall and Krueger study, this analysis made deceiving and legally erroneous associations between scheduling flexibility and independent contractor status. Rather than probing the presumptions that workers might have about employee status and disaggregating these associations in relationship to what the law does and does not require, both of these studies do the cultural work of entrenching misconceptions about the law. Scheduling flexibility and on-the-job autonomy arise from business practices.56 Although time flexibility is sometimes one of many factors considered for determining worker status, it is also commensurate with employment.

2. Survey of Uber Drivers in San Francisco & Findings on Classification Preferences

To get a broader descriptive view of the Uber drivers who work in San Francisco—where I conducted an ethnographic study of Uber worker collectivities—I, too, developed a survey project.57

In capturing preference for an employee or independent contractor classification, the survey instrument avoided the double barrel problem in Hall and Krueger’s question. Subjects were asked in binary terms whether they preferred to be an employee or independent contractor, and they were not given any information on what those statuses meant or entailed. To gauge what informed their preferences, subjects were then asked an open-ended question: “Why?” Findings from the binary question were similar to those in other research studies: most drivers preferred the independent contractor classification. This was true for immigrant drivers, non-immigrant drivers, women, and men. It was also true regardless of whether subjects reported that they were engaged in Uber driving as their primary work, supplemental work, or only work. Answers to the open-ended question of why drivers favored one or the other identity suggested that workers took an instrumentalist approach to answering this question; almost invariably, they associated each status with features of work they wanted or needed, e.g., health insurance, vehicle reimbursements, flexibility, autonomy. Answers also revealed that many Uber drivers—like the economists in the two studies discussed above—incorrectly conflated employee status with a mandate against scheduling flexibility.

Surveys of Uber drivers in San Francisco were conducted in-person between February and August 2016.58 Surveys were administered in Uber rides taken by researchers from different locations and at different times of the day (to capture as much driver variability as possible).59 Each survey took approximately 20 minutes, and drivers were not otherwise incentivized.60 The sole purpose of each Uber ride was to complete a survey. Of the total 218 surveys attempted, 214 were administered, and 13 were discarded for lack of completion. The collected sample was not intended to be representative of the larger San Francisco driver population, but to offer descriptive insight. The relevant demographics of the driver population were as follows: immigrant drivers made up 71 percent of total respondents; women constituted only 8 percent of respondents; 58 percent of drivers worked as a ride-hail driver as their only job; 15 percent of the sample worked as a ride-hail driver as their primary job but also had other work; and 27 percent drove as a supplement to another primary job.

Overall, 47 percent of survey subjects reported that they preferred employee status. Of the non-immigrant respondents, the percentage difference was greater; only 32 percent stated they preferred employee status. In the small sample of women, 31 percent preferred employee status. I initially hypothesized that workers for whom Uber was their primary or only work would be more likely to prefer employee status. However, the number of workers across the three categories—whether Uber driving was their only, primary, or supplemental work—was fairly consistent. For the majority of drivers working in San Francisco who answered this survey, driving for Uber is their only work, and of these, 45 percent preferred to be employees. The number of drivers who had other jobs but for whom Uber is still their primary work was the smallest, and of these, 40 percent wanted to be employees. For those who drive for Uber as supplemental work, 38 percent wanted to be employees. These percentages are reflected below in Figure 1.

Figure. 1: SF Uber Driver Stated Preference for Worker Status, by Identity Variable (2016 Survey Data)

If regulators take the position that driver preference matters—that the law should to some extent reflect the desires and perspectives of those it is intended to serve—then all the survey data across studies seem to indicate that labor platform companies like Uber and Lyft should be allowed to continue to treat their workers as independent contractors, and that employment and labor laws

should accommodate this. Indeed, in several states, it already has.61 But a survey question that conceptualizes driver perspectives as either positive or negative oversimplifies the complexity of workers’ fears, needs, and perceptions about employment. Hence, after this binary query, drivers were asked to answer why they preferred one or the other.

Unsurprisingly, a majority of drivers who indicated a preference for employee status—79 percent—stated that they wanted the security and/or benefits that come with employment. Of those who preferred to be treated as independent contractors, 67 percent stated that this answer was informed by a need or desire for scheduling flexibility and/or autonomy on the job. Flexibility may roughly corellate to real life experiences with independent contractor status, but by law, employee status does not mandate inflexible work or shift scheduling. Other survey answers explaining a preference for independent contractor classification included 5 percent of drivers who indicated that they did not know the difference between the two statuses; 4 percent of drivers who said that they did not deserve employee benefits because they worked part-time (also a legal misperception); and 6 percent who were expressly ambivalent—either would be fine. Hence, 15 percent of drivers who indicated a preference for independent contractor status in the previous question subsequently stated that they did not understand, had a misconception of what the law mandated of employment, or did not care. Accordingly, even the short open-ended follow up question of “why” drivers had a preference for one or the other status complicated the initial survey question’s findings. These percentages are reflected in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Explanation for Independent Contractor Preference (2016 Survey Data)

My ethnographic research further unsettled both the survey numbers and the practice of determining complicated preferences through an efficient survey medium. Below, based on driver narratives drawn from interviews and ethnographic data, I argue that the survey findings capture not attitudinal realities or desires, but in many cases, driver perceptions rooted in fear.

C. Ethnographic Findings on Driver Perspectives on Employee Status

In over 50 several hours long, semi-structured interviews and innumerable unstructured conversations with drivers in driver organizing meetings and social settings, I probed the question of employee and independent contractor status. How did workers’ think about these classification categories? In the context of their relative powerlessness and economic reliance on Uber, employee  status was subjectively constructed through duality. It was both a desirable way to fight back against the company and a status that came with its own undesirable uncertainties, including, most critically, the potential loss of schedule flexibility.

1. Ambivalence & Powerlessness

Worker narratives overwhelmingly suggested that drivers had an ambivalent relationship to the employee identity. In making sense of these legal categories, which have been perplexing even for law professors and judges to parse, Uber drivers’ said they unequivocally needed and wanted the protections and benefits that employment status offered, but many were afraid of what a company like Uber would do if they embraced their role as “employer.” Drivers, in conceptualizing their fears, had a strong sense of the structural and instrumental power of the company.62 Their ambivalence was fueled by what a terrible employer Uber could be, how Uber would never agree to an employment model, and fears that the company would take away their flexibility—not because employee status necessitates a shift schedule—but just because they could.63

Nina’s perspectives on employee status embodied all of these concerns. A 50-year old immigrant from Venezuela, Nina began driving for Uber and Lyft in March 2015. She had previously co-owned a small company with her ex-husband. After the divorce, she was out of work and without an income. She could not hold a steady job because of a medical need to take frequent and unpredictable rest breaks. Nina was involved in a driver-led organization when I met her, and she had officially objected to a proposed settlement in a class action against Uber. Like Kevin, she told me that she didn’t want settlement money from Uber; unlike him, she wanted to be an employee. But every now and again, Nina would divulge her fears about the employee classification she was fighting for. In one conversation, she told me,

Of course, I want to be an employee, but on the other hand, I think, how would I be treated by Travis Kalanick, as him being my employer? He would have a whip on us. What is he going to do to me as an employee? I know he is capable of many things. This man is an awful man, awful to the point that I think he is a sociopath. And to have so many people feeding families in the hands of a sociopath is bad. Uber is so ruthless to these software engineers. Imagine what they would do to us [drivers].”64

On the one hand, all of Nina’s organizing efforts were oriented toward achieving employee status. On the other, she was plagued by concerns about what working conditions she would have to endure if Uber became her employer. She already felt exploited by Uber and disrespected by company executives’ attitudes towards drivers. But without access to company managers, a human relations department, or even accountable regulators, Nina funneled her fury to Uber’s legal Achilles’ heel—how they classified their drivers. Her quest for employee status was fueled by a desire for employee benefits and by a need to resist.

Like other drivers in my ethnography, Nina also frequently alluded to the company’s structural power: the amount of venture capital money behind Uber and the company’s influential political connections. My interlocutors regularly sent individual and group emails and texts with links to articles discussing investments in Uber and other gig companies or comments by prominent politicians supporting the companies for their “innovation” and “job creation.” For the senders, these articles were evidence that companies were engaged in unscrupulous graft. “They are lining lawmaker’s pockets,” was a sentiment that I heard often, from Nina and others. Many believed that the companies were actually involved in illegal bribes, but most were alluding to the instrumental power of Uber and other gig companies in their deliberate and successful political engagements.65

The companies, they believed, had so much power in the regulatory arena, that no matter what, they could not be forced to recognize their drivers as employees. For example, Rusty, a Filipino-American immigrant driver, felt there was no way Uber would give him basic employee benefits, no matter what the law and regulators said. Like many migrant drivers in California, Rusty drove from his home in Orange County to San Francisco for work because the rates were higher than in Southern California. In the context of how much he could benefit from employee benefits, he described his migrant work life to me,

[For] most of the day, I stay in my car, living in my car...I’ll have a curtain that I’ll use to [sleep]...and then there are days that I would be able to get a bath, but there are times when I’m not going to be able to take a bath for two or three days. Then you sleep in your car and as soon as you get up then you start driving. It’s really--it’s terrible. I’m far from my family.66

Rusty wanted the benefits associated with employment, but he chose “independent contractor” status on the survey. In one of my discussions with him, he explained that his preference was based on what he thought was most realistic. Over the phone, after returning home, he further discussed his thoughts on employment,

It will be great if they make us employees, but I don’t think that Uber will. They’re very smart and they’re very shrewd and very greedy. They’re not going to go for it ever because they make money out of this kind of system that they have right now. Where I have to sleep in my car. Why would they change? The law bends for them.67

Rusty’s assessment and his reason for stating a preference for independent contractor status were well-informed. But they did not reflect a rejection of employment benefits—only a realistic assessment of the company’s power. “Why fight for this? We will never win,” he told me. Eventually, Rusty stopped driving for Uber because of the toll it was taking on his mental and physical health and on his relationship with his family.

Rather than being clear-cut, Nina and Rusty’s perspectives on employee status were fueled by an ambivalence generated from a fear that the company could act with impunity. Unlike judges applying a legal test, drivers took into account the external influences that might impact their lives beyond the obvious benefits of the status. Their knowledge of the amount of money gig companies spent lobbying to get laws written in their favor, of the companies’ political connections, and of their ruthless litigation tactics left workers with little faith in the law’s ability to address their on-the-job problems.

2. Ambivalence & Schedule Flexibility

In addition to their feelings of powerlessness in relationship to Uber, the ambivalence that a majority of drivers harbored towards employee status also stemmed from the necessity of scheduling flexibility in their lives. When drivers who said they wanted to be either an employee or independent contractor said what they wanted most, benefits like health insurance and a wage floor loomed large, but flexibility was omnipresent. Whether they led transnational lives, endured disabilities that made a shift schedule impossible, or were responsible to and for young children, flexibility for work was not just a desire, it was a necessity. Contextualizing the need for scheduling flexibility and the ways in which it is conflated in driver narratives with the independent contractor classification also helps to explain—and undermine—the survey data.

For example, Paul, a white, 25-year old internal migrant from Pikeville, a poor mining town in Kentucky, had indicated in the survey that he didn’t want to be an employee of Uber. When, over coffee, I asked him, again, why, he answered,

Well, maybe not me personally because eventually I would like to move on to another job. But it would be nice to have like paid time off though. But at the same rate, Uber’s a horrible company.

If they did have us as employees, they may be a lot more strict in terms of customer feedback. Maybe if a customer gave really bad feedback, they may fire us.68

Paul’s answer was much more complicated than represented in the survey. On the one-hand, Paul wanted the protections associated with employee status; specifically, he wanted to be able to take paid-time-off.69 Our conversation troubled popular assumptions of what workers meant when they said they wanted to be independent contractors because of the “flexibility.” Paul did not mean that he wanted the privilege to work whenever he felt like it; he meant that he wanted to work whenever he could. Suffering from a mental illness that presents sporadically, Paul was, on unpredictable days, incapable of working. He wanted income protection during those times. That, he noted, would be one positive aspect of being an employee. But, like Nina and Rusty, he was afraid that if Uber were his employer, he would be even more at the whim and whimsy of the company, who might fire him based on a single customer’s feedback

Another Uber driver, Ashraf, echoed the sentiments of many other workers in my ethnography when I asked them why they preferred the independent contractor classification, “Flexibility. Nothing else. If I get someone to hire me for flexibility; I will work for them.”70 A Sudanese-American refugee who came to the U.S. in 1999, Ashraf had three small children. His wife, a healthcare worker, had a shift schedule—and health insurance. Soon after I got to know him, Ashraf had a kidney transplant. When I visited him in the hospital, he emphasized to me how much he needed flexibility in his work. With three children and living in one of the most expensive areas in the world, he needed to start working again soon.

“You know, if you were an employee for Uber, they would have to cover your gas and car expenses,” I explained as a nurse came in to check on him.

“Okay. Then it’s okay with me. Then it’s okay,” he trailed of exhausted. “I have been an employee. But I need the flexibility. For now, my situation is...I need the flexibility.”71

Ashraf needed to rest, so I didn’t want to belabor the point or force him to think about how he needed to start driving again—perhaps before he was physically ready. But I wanted to tell him—as I had to so many others—that in spite of what the gig companies told him, employee status did not mandate a shift schedule. And conversely, schedule discipline did not necessarily lead to the economic security of regulated work.

As discussed in Part I, legal analysis of employee status, by law, has mostly focused on how much control a hiring entity exerts over a putative employee. But the 8-10 hour shift is a relic of factory work and the result—not of employer control—but of massive, labor-driven reform movements that sought to exert worker control over the rhythm of work.72 If we conceptualize time discipline in the service economy not by the existence of a shift schedule but by how long one has to work to eke out a living, then gig work is fairly inflexible. Because Uber controls how much drivers earn per fare, what fares the drivers receive, how many fares the drivers receive, and how drivers conduct themselves in the context of the fare, drivers must work long, unpredictable hours and are subject to all kinds of control while at work. As one astute driver told me, “What flexibility? I sleep in my car; I eat in my car; I work in my car. That is not freedom.”73

Despite the overwhelming ambivalence toward employee status captured in my qualitative interviews and ethnographic fieldnotes, Uber, Lyft, and other app-based service workers rallied behind a California law, AB5, which aimed to stop the misclassification of workers in the gig economy. In the next section, I examine how and why drivers supported the regulation despite their deeply complicated and contested feelings about employment.

III. Organizing Ambivalence: Worker Mobilization for Employment Status in California

A bill widely-referenced as AB5 was signed into California law in September 2019, standardizing the test for employee status across state laws, including those embodied in the wage orders, the labor code, and the unemployment insurance code. In contrast to the prevailing test for employee status with its subjective focus on control exerted by the hiring entity, AB5 created a presumption of employee status and codified the ABC test to determine who is excluded from California employment protections (discussed in Part I). As a result of its potential impact on clarifying the employee status (under state laws) of workers in the platform-enabled gig economy, AB5 was heralded as “set[ting] the tone for the future of work.”74 The general secretary of the International Transportation Federation, went so far as to state, “[AB5] is nothing short of historic and must be the beginning of something big. Global unions see this as a source of inspiration in our fight for an international governance framework for ‘gig economy’ workers...”75

The law’s passage was attributable in no small part to the impassioned advocacy of drivers and drivers’ groups. In the face of aggressive campaigning against the bill by gig companies76, drivers’ groups engaged in near constant organizing and lobbying. Drivers from the three major gig workers’ groups in California—Rideshare Drivers United, Gig Workers Rising, and Mobile Workers Alliance— met with many state representatives to discuss the precariousness of gig work and their need for basic benefits. They participated in group caravans from San Diego to Sacramento to rally in favor of the bill. Some protested in front of Uber headquarters, and others came to every legislative hearing on the bill. In speaking to lawmakers and journalists covering the issue, workers conveyed the urgency of basic protections and the perils of algorithmic management.

Given the uncertainty about employee status felt by many drivers, the passionate support among drivers’ groups for AB5 defied predictability. Why were workers who felt ambivalence about employment fighting so hard to become employees? Through participant observation and ethnographic engagement with workers in Rideshare Drivers United (RDU)—77—I found that the drivers’ embrace of the law was rooted most fundamentally in fury at the gig companies. For many, the only grassroots, worker-led association of Uber/Lyft drivers in California with significant membership (in May 2019, the group had over 5000 driver members)

Drivers had endured wage cuts for many years, protested in front of the company headquarters, delivered petitions to executives, and tried to garner media advocacy around their plight. But despite all this activism, nothing in their work lives or about the companies’ behavior had changed. Getting

AB5 passed was a form of resistance that the companies could not ignore. As, Mike, a long time Uber driver and RDU driver organizer, commented,

Three-four years ago, there is no way anyone one would have been for employment. People were getting what they needed, and they felt loyalty to the company. So, if the company said come to Sacramento [to defeat this bill], they would have come. That didn’t happen this time [with the astroturf campaign]. Instead, drivers went to Sacramento to fight the companies. We are fed up.78

Mike and other RDU driver organizers also reflected on how empowered drivers felt when they heard regulators openly side with workers. “Did you hear what [Speaker of the California State Assembly] Anthony Rendon said [at the rally]?” Shaheen asked me at one organizing meeting, “he said ‘this is fucking feudalism.’ He actually said that. And the press quoted him on it. Can you believe it?” After spending years hearing how politicians supported gig companies, to finally have their working conditions recognized and condemned by state representatives was galvanizing.

In addition to mobilizing driver frustration and fury, driver advocates were also strategic in approaching the ambivalent attitude toward employee status among the gig workforce. Before the introduction of AB5, core RDU driver organizers “were not sure if employment was going to fly” among their membership base. When I asked Nicole Moore, a Lyft driver and one of the lead organizers, precisely how RDU rallied drivers in favor of employment, she explained that it happened organically and was a collaborative process.79 The driver organizers started by asking drivers about their priorities. Using their own app-based technology, they sent questions to their members on what they most wanted to prioritize to change about their working conditions. From those responses and after thousands of conversations, members democratically voted on a Drivers’ Bill of Rights. “It just happened,” Nicole said, “that what a lot of what drivers wanted mapped to [benefits provided by] employee status, including a fair wage and a union.” When I pointed out that AB5 did not give them union rights, Nicole told me, “It’s a first step. This is just the first step. We are a union, and with fair wages and basic protections, we can grow and become stronger.”80

Still, in the height of the AB5 campaign, drivers and driver organizers expressed occasional fears that they would lose their flexibility because of the law. “Even though we know employee status doesn’t mean we have to work shifts. We’re worried they’ll do it anyway. Just because it’s easier, and maybe to punish us,” said Chris, a driver I talked to at an RDU meeting. But among the core RDU organizers, the need for basic benefits and their anger at the gig companies trumped these lingering anxieties about what would happen to their schedule flexibility. “That’s our next fight,” Nicole disclosed. “First, we get this bill passed, and then we raise hell when they say we can’t have flexibility.

Conclusion

In resisting labor regulations, platform gig companies have tried to frame the debate around research findings suggesting workers prefer the independent contractor status. In this article, I have destabilized the basis for this assertion. Not only is the research methodologically flawed, but the desires and needs of gig workers on the subject of employee status are much more complex than can be adequately represented in survey research. My deep ethnographic engagement, participant observation, and qualitative interviews underscore that gig workers are ambivalent about employee status. While they need and want protections, many recognize the immense structural and instrumental powers of the corporations, and they fear what kinds of control gig companies might exert if they feel authorized to behave as employers. Workers are particularly worried about losing on-the-job scheduling flexibility. Nevertheless, both because of their precarious work lives and because they had been ignored, for years, by both gig companies and regulators, gig workers in California mobilized in favor of employee status and rallied to pass AB5.

Based on these findings, I conclude that for the purposes of workplace regulations, the question of whether gig workers want to be employees is fundamentally the wrong one. For lawmakers seeking to stabilize worker incomes and extend safety net protections to gig workers, the better inquiry is what kinds of protections do workers in the platform-based service economy need. Many of the answers to this question are embodied in the existing panoply of work protections accorded to employees. Among other things, gig workers need wage guarantees, workers’ compensation if they are injured on the job, unemployment insurance if they are terminated through no fault of their own, freedom from discrimination at work, healthy and safe workplaces, and the rights to engage in organizing and to form a union.

Instead of limiting the protections that gig workers have access to—as the gig companies have suggested in their own legislative proposals—lawmakers may approach the regulation of gig work by growing employment protections. For example, based on the professed needs of gig workers like Paul, Nina, Kevin, and Ashraf, regulators could append the right to set one’s own time schedule into state labor codes. Ironically, in their attempt to undermine AB5, Uber and Lyft penned alternative legislation in which they expressed a willingness to commit to exactly this in exchange for other basic employment protections.82 But gig workers need both. As Nicole from RDU said passionately at an AB5 organizing meeting, “Regulators cannot improve this work without engaging the people that do it. Ask us and we’ll tell you...we need healthcare, we need fair wages, and we need flexibility. And together, we are going to fight like hell for those things...All of those things, and more.”

We are going to have to fight for that, too. But right now, we are just fighting for our freedom. Our freedom to put food on the table and pay our rent.”81

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Footnotes

Pseudonyms are used in the place of real names to protect the identity of interview subjects.

Banks, Kevin. Interview by V.B. Dubal, May 10, 2016.

Ibid.

Banks, Kevin. Interview by V.B. Dubal, April 4, 2016.

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O’Connor v. Uber, 201 F.Supp.3d 1110 (2016).

Later, Kevin also supported the Teamsters in their attempted intervention in Cotter. Rather than allow the case to settle, the Teamsters wanted to litigate the case and get a decision on the status of drivers so as to undermine Lyft’s business model. Teamsters, Lyft Drivers to File Objections in Class Action Lawsuit Settlement, March 15, 2016. https://teamster.org/news/2016/03/teamsters-lyft-drivers-file-objections-class-action-lawsuit-settlement.

Banks, Kevin. Interview by V.B. Dubal, May 10, 2016.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Tony West. “Uber: Drivers Tell Us Through Focus Groups and Surveys They Don’t Want to be Employees.” USA Today, Sept. 16, 2019. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/09/16/uber-drivers-tell-us-they-dont-want-employees-editorials-debates/2346851001/.

“Uber in Legal Battle Over Drivers’ Employment.” ABC 7 News, Aug. 6, 2015. https://abc7news.com/business/uber-in-legal-battle-over-drivers-employment/909341/.

Janine Berg and Hannah Johnston. “Too Good to Be True? A Comment on Hall and Krueger’s Analysis of the Labor Market for Uber’s Driver-Partners.” ILR Review 72, no. 1 (2019): 39-40.

The ethnographic research included hundreds of hours of participant observation and action at drivers’ meetings, protests, in meetings with regulators, on group phone calls and texts, in government hearings, and one-on-one conversations. With some drivers, who I got to know over a period of time, my ethnography continued into social spaces. All workers in the drivers’ groups were Uber or Lyft drivers, and many worked for other gig platforms as well, including Wonolo, Doordash, and Postmates. This research gave me insight into the complex and unpredictable links between law, work, and everyday life. Rather than claim generalizability or static sociological ascription, my multifarious findings problematize overbroad claims to knowledge about workers.

See generally, Margo Buchanan-Oliver and Angela Cruz. “Discourses of technology consumption: Ambivalence, fear, and liminality.” ACR North American Advances (2011); Mark Connor and Christopher J. Armitage. “Attitudinal ambivalence.” Attitudes and Attitude Change (2008): 261-286; S. Craig and M. Martinez, eds. Ambivalence, Politics and Public Policy. Springer, 2016; Alice H. Eagly and Shelly Chaiken. The Psychology of Attitudes. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1993.

Estimates put the additional costs of employment benefits at roughly one third of the employee’s compensation. See, for example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics breakdown for the average costs of employment compensation. “Employer Costs for Employee Compensation.” Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor, June 2019. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf.

V.B. Dubal. “Wage Slave or Entrepreneur: Contesting the Dualism of Legal Worker Identities.” Calif. L. Rev. 105 (2017): 86-88.

As I have shown in previous work, the taxi industry was one of the first places to shift to lower costs and risks by shifting to an independent contractor model. Taxi companies toyed with “leasing models” to lower both the overhead associated with employment and to de-unionize the industry. Rather than pay drivers by commission with an underlying guaranteed wage, the companies leased cars to drivers by the shift. Drivers paid for gas and the lease and kept the remaining earnings from his shift. V.B. Dubal. “The Drive to Precarity: A Political History of Work, Regulation, & Labor Advocacy in San Francisco's Taxi & Uber Economics.” Berkeley J. Emp. & Lab. L. 38 (2017): 100-109.

Ibid, 120-129.

Ibid.

See, for example, Keith Cunningham-Parmeter. “From Amazon to Uber: Defining employment in the modern economy.” BUL Rev. 96 (2016): 1725-1727; Nicholas L. DeBruyne, “Uber Drivers: A Disputed Employment Relationship in Light of the Sharing Economy.” Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 92 (2017): 315; Jillian Kaltner. “Employment Status of Uber and Lyft Drivers: Unsettlingly Settled.” Hastings Women's LJ 29 (2018): 44.

Dubal, “Wage Slave or Entrepreneur,” 72-75.

I use the plural “they” as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun.

FedEx Home Delivery v. NLRB, 563 F.3d 492 (D.C. Cir. 2009).

SuperShuttle DFW, Inc. and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1338. Case 16–RC–010963, Jan. 25, 2019.

Estrada v. FedEx, 64 Cal. Rptr. 3d 327 (Ct. App. 2007)

Ibid at 9.

Dubal, “Wage Slave or Entrepreneur,” 70.

Julia Tomassetti. “Who Is a Worker? Partisanship, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Social Content of Employment.” Law & Social Inquiry 37, no. 4 (2012): 815-847.

Deepa Das Acevedo. “Unbundling Freedom in the Sharing Economy.” S. Cal. L. Rev. 91 (2017): 793.

Noah D Zatz. “Beyond misclassification: Tackling the independent contractor problem without redefining employment.” ABA Journal of Labor & Employment Law (2011): 280.

See generally, V.B. Dubal. “Winning the Battle, Losing the War: Assessing the Impact of Misclassification Litigation on Workers in the Gig Economy.” Wis. L. Rev. (2017): 739-802.

Ibid at 780-791.

The California ABC test was articulated in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles, No. S222732 (Cal. Sup. Ct. Apr. 30, 2018).

Ibid.

Dubal, “Wage Slave or Entrepreneur,” 71.

Dubal, “Drive to Precarity,” 111-115.

Ibid.

Dubal, “Wage Slave or Entrepreneur,” 105.

Ibid at 107-109.

Dubal, “Drive to Precarity,” 116-120.

Ibid.

Ibid.

The Taxi commission even had a voting driver representative. This changed in 2009 when the SFMTA took over regulation of the taxi industry. Ibid at 123.

Tracy v. Yellow Cab Coop., No. 938786 at 10–11 (Super. Ct. Cal. Oct. 22, 1996). For a longer discussion of this case, see Dubal, “Winning the Battle, Losing the War,” 758-769.

Jonathan V. Hall and Alan B. Krueger. "An analysis of the labor market for Uber’s driver-partners in the United States." ILR Review 71, no. 3 (2018): 705-732.

Although this article was ultimately published in 2018, the 2015 working paper version was highly cited.

For example, it was quoted in testimony given to the House Small Business Committee Hearing, United States House of Representatives on May 24, 2016. Janine Berg and Hannah Johnston. and Krueger’s Analysis of the Labor Market for Uber’s Driver-Partners.” ILR Review 72, no. 1 (2019): 40.

Ibid at 39.

Ibid at 43.

Thor Berger, Carl Benedikt Frey, Guy Levin, and Santosh Rao Danda. "Uber Happy? Work and Well-being in the ‘Gig Economy.’” Economic Policy (2018).

Ibid. I might argue that most people—not just those on the Uber platform—have strong preferences for autonomy and scheduling flexibility.

See generally, Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello. The New Spirit of Capitalism, (London and New York, Verso: 2005); Benjamin H. Snyder, The Disrupted Workplace: Time and the Moral Order of Flexible Capitalism. (Oxford University Press, 2016).

The survey instrument was designed in collaboration with political scientists at the University of California at Berkeley, Professor Ruth Collier and graduate student Christopher Carter.

This survey was designed alongside political scientists Ruth Collier and Chris Carter. It was completed with funding from the Chip Robertson Fund.

Neither the timing nor the location of rides was systematized to capture optimal variability.

Researchers informed the drivers upon beginning the ride that they were conducting research and that no matter whether the driver took the survey, the researcher would give them a five-star rating.

Ruth Berins Collier,, V. B. Dubal, and Christopher L. Carter. “Disrupting regulation, regulating disruption: The politics of Uber in the United States.” Perspectives on Politics 16, no. 4 (2018): 930.

For a discussion of structural and instrumental power of U.S. businesses, see Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson. “Business power and social policy: employers and the formation of the American welfare state.” Politics & Society 30, no. 2 (2002): 277-325.

Workers perceived Uber as setting the tone and practices for other companies; hence, in these narratives, Uber served as a symbolic stand-in for gig companies more generally.

Hernandez, Nina. Interview by V.B. Dubal, Sept. 20, 2016.

For more on the structural and instrumental power of Uber in the regulatory arena in the U.S., see generally, Collier, Dubal, and Carter. “Disrupting Regulation,” 919-937.

Cruz, Rusty. Interview by V.B. Dubal, May 4, 2017.

Cruz, Rusty. Interview by V.B. Dubal, Aug. 19, 2017.

Jefferson, Paul. Interview by V.B. Dubal, April 25, 2016.

Paid time off is provided under California law.

Saad, Ashraf. Interview by V.B. Dubal, May 8, 2017.

Ibid.

Snyder, The Disrupted Workplace, 36.

Younan, Tony. Interview by V.B. Dubal, Mar. 4, 2017.

Kate Conger and Noam Scheiber. “California Bill Makes App-Based Companies Treat Workers as Employees.” New York Times, Sept, 11, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/11/technology/california-gig-economy-bill.html.

“CA AB5 Law: Now We Need a Global Law for ‘Gig’ Workers.” Sept. 12, 2019. https://www.itfglobal.org/en/news/california-ab-5-law-now-we-need-global-law-gig-workers

Major gig companies headquartered in California, including Uber and Lyft, engaged in aggressive organizing and lobbying to defeat the bill. They flooded workers with in-app messages stating that the bill threatened their flexibility, lobbied legislators to vote against it, and even co-sponsored an astroturf campaign alongside the Chamber of Commerce entitled “The I’m Independent Coalition.” The I’m Independent Coalition paid gig workers up to $100 to appear at a rally opposing AB5. And citing the survey research discussed in Part II, the companies repeatedly told regulators and journalists that workers want to be independent contractors, and not employees.

The other two organizations have been formed and sponsored by unions.

Smith, Mike. Interview by V. B. Dubal, March 29, 2019.

Moore, Nicole. Interview by V. B. Dubal, May 30, 2019. Nicole Moore is the only driver whose real name I use in this article because she has taken on the public face of RDU.

Moore, Nicole. Interview by V. B. Dubal, Aug. 8, 2019.

Ibid.

This legislation is embedded in a San Francisco Chronicle article for reference. See Carolyn Said. “Uber Circulates New Gig Bill as Alternative to AB5.” San Francisco Chronicle. Sept. 20, 2019. https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-circulates-new-gig-work-bill-as-alternative-14426247.php

#uber #labor #labor relations #gig economy #ab5 #independent contractors #labor law #precarity #gig workers #ethnography #studies #survey

[thefemalehustler]

INTERVIEW: JACKY OH

Hi Jacky! Thanks for taking the time to speak with ‘The Female Hustler’ we look forward to learning more about your journey through the entertainment industry so far!

Where are you from originally and what or who was your inspiration to get into the entertainment industry?

I am actually originally from the San Francisco, Bay Area! The Bay is filled with so much culture and diversity – I have been inspired by the art, history and people I’ve encountered living there.

You lived in LA briefly, people associate Los Angeles with the glitz and glamour but experiencing living there first hand what challenges did you face on your journey to becoming successful within the entertainment business?

I lived in LA for a couple of years and I noticed that the main difference between LA and the SF Bay Area is that people are a lot more down to earth in the Bay. It had seemed to me that everyone was very interested in how they could further their careers and not very interested in helping others (unless it benefitted them in a way). Los Angeles is about who you know, so I definitely had to get out there and network and make people know that they needed to know me.

Have you always wanted to pursue a career within entertainment?

Growing up I actually always thought I would be an attorney. My Dad always gave me and my siblings the goal of being Lawyers so that was the original plan. I didn’t think about being in the entertainment industry until college.

What was your first job within the entertainment industry?

The first set I was on I was casted by my now friend, E. Mills, who is a popular casting director in LA. He casted me for Tyga & French Montana’s ‘Thrilla & Manilla” music video as one of three models.

You have been a well known model for some time now, what made you decide to get into modelling and what would you say has been your biggest job to date?

My biggest job to date has been being a model on MTV’s Wild N Out as one of the Wild ’n’ Out Girls.

It was also a pretty big deal to be in the Jodeci ‘Every Moment’ music video , which I was personally asked by Hype Williams to be in. We shot it in Aspen , which was absolutely breath-taking!

One of your biggest jobs to date as you mentioned has been securing the role as one of the main cast members on MTV's Wild N Out, how did that opportunity come about and what opportunities have come about from being on such a popular show?

I received a DM from Nick Cannon’s assistant in regards to coming in to do an interview for Wild N Out. I think they found me because of my large social media following on Instagram.

Wild N Out is known for having some amazing guests on the show, who have been some of your favourite guests so far?

I was so excited to be on the Kevin Hart episode, he is a FOOL! Comedy comes so naturally to him (duhh lol) so it was funny watching him keep all the cast on their toes. He had a comeback for anything thrown his way.

Your boyfriend DC Young Fly is also a main cast member on the show and famous comedian, did you guys meet on the show?

Yep! DC & I met on the first day of filming.

You guys not so long ago had your beautiful baby girl Nova, congratulations! She is super cute! How have you adjusted to being a first time mum?

It came very naturally to adjust as a first time mom. I think God gives you those 9 months of pregnancy to prepare your mind and your life to change forever. I used that time to ask questions, and prep for my baby girl.

You have a crazy work schedule, how have you found it juggling being a full time mother and having a full time career?

It honestly comes pretty easy to me. I make adjustments when needed, but, I love bringing my daughter everywhere with me. Some parents find it hard to bring their child along, but I enjoy having her by my side. I also time things out as well so that I may get work done during her nap times.

Do you have any tips for mums out there who still want to have a full time career but are maybe unsure on the best way to go about doing both?

Having family around helps a lot. If you have to get things done and the little one can’t come along it’s nice having family around whom you trust to babysit for a while. Also, as I mentioned before, timing is very important. Give yourself a timeline throughout the day so that you may maximize every minute & get sh*t done! Don’t let your child be an excuse to not be productive, let them be your motivation!

You recently launched your lip gloss / fashion collection 'J Nova', what was the inspiration behind the collection and what can people expect from a 'J Nova' product?

My boyfriend suggested that I start a makeup line because people were always asking me about my makeup- more specifically my lip gloss. And I was already doing Youtube videos about my makeup routines so I figured- why not sell my own?!

What marketing tips can you give to anyone launching a new company whether it be with a lip gloss collection like yourself or a clothing line, what are the main things to remember when it comes to successful marketing?

1) Give yourself deadlines. Or, if someone is doing something for you- make sure you give them an earlier deadline than the time you really need it. 2) Utilize your friends and family for marketing 3) DO YOUR RESEARCH! Don’t just dive into selling something, look at your competitors, look at the market , etc.

How essential do you think social media is these days for connecting with customers when launching new products?

Social media is a great marketing tool. We’re a generation of Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. It’s a great way to stay connected and in the loop on what your customers like and dislike.

As you know this site is called 'The Female Hustler' which we definitely think you are! What is the definition of a 'Female Hustler' to you?

The word hustler to me is someone who is a go getter. Not one who sits back and daydreams, but rather someone who turns those dreams into goals and goals into realities. Any woman who does that is a female hustler.

Finally what can we expect from Jacky Oh for the last half of 2017 and where can people buy your 'J Nova' products?

I am auditioning for TV/Movie roles so hopefully I’ll be landing a role very soon. For now, you may catch all of my fun vlogs on my Youtube channel, and shop my ULTRA GLOSSY lip glosses at jnovacollection.com

Social: Instagram/Twitter/Facebook/Snapchat: @msjackyoh Vlogs & Beauty: Youtube.com/msjackyoh

[spreadplaylist]

SPREAD CH.2 ARTIST SPOTLIGHT - Taylor Jamison

Hi SPREAD listeners! I hope everyone has been having a meaningful Pride month while enjoying the PRIDE playlist! The featured artist off SPREAD CH. 2 is dear friend of mine and a force to be reckoned with. Get a glimpse below of Taylor Jamison's life as an unapologetic songwriter and artist. HERE WE GO!

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Taylor: Hey hey, my name is Taylor Jamison and I’m a songwriter/singer right here in most-of-the-time-sunny Los Angeles! I’m originally from Boulder, CO, but have been living here in LA for a second now, writing for some amazing new artists, and creating some cool tunes under my name as well!

Dan: Hi Taylor! Welcome! I am so glad that u are PRIDE's featured artist. You are a songwriting beast who is constantly on the grind. I'm excited for people to hear about ur career and your thoughts about the industry, so let's get started.

Describe a typical day in the life of a songwriter. What do u enjoy the most about it?

Taylor: I’d say a typical day in the studio with me, at least, is catching up on life with whoever I’m working with, joking around, sharing funny moments of the week, usually someone has a good hook up/sex story as well. My favorite part is that, from these shared moments, a story unfolds itself. I see myself as a “Storyteller for the Ears,” so whether it’s myself singing the song or another artist, I love being able to share a moment/feeling in time through music and watching how people react to it.

Dan: I would say that u just perfectly summed up the reason songwriters do what they do! It's all about the story and the connection. In finding this connection for yourself, describe the place that makes you feel the most inspired creatively.

Taylor: I absolutely LOVE the beach because it’s so many things to me. Gentle, but powerful. Beautiful, with a dark side. Tranquil, yet full of energy. It makes me nostalgic for days passed, while making me think forward into the future. I love going out and laying by myself with a notebook, letting the sound wash over me until the words start falling out of my head onto the paper.

Dan: LA beaches are definitely hard to beat, too! I could use a beach day myself. It's a great way to reset and get those creative juices flowing. After running through all of those emotions we then get to the actual songwriting process. Now you have countless songs to ur name. Out of those, what song of yours are u most proud of? Why?

Taylor: Ooooooo, this is a hard one. I’m gonna have to have a tie on this between, “Down”, and, “The Last Time”. When putting together the production and sound scape of, “Down”, I really wanted to create a sense of longing because that’s essentially what that song is: it’s the complete taking-down of your walls for somebody because you want to fall completely into them, letting yourself be vulnerable so they know just how much you want them. For, “The Last Time”, I decided to keep that song with just piano and vocals because adding production was going to end up making it sound cheesy, and this song has such a powerful sense of nostalgia that I wanted it to almost seem completely empty, just like how you feel sometimes when you think back on someone from your past. Plus, that key change is life (have to toot my own horn on that one lolz), I want more artists to do key changes again!!!

Dan: Girl, key changes are UNDERRATED. When done just right, they can completely change a song for me. The key change in "The Last Time" makes me scream every single time. I think we could see them make a comeback.

Now, just like anyone on this journey, there are numerous high and low points. Tell us about when the music industry has maybe made you feel inadequate. How did u overcome this?

Taylor: Ummmm, the industry can make you feel inadequate on almost a daily basis if you let it, honestly. I’d be lying if I were to say that every day is a walk in the park, cause it’s not: you feel like you're constantly trying to prove to the world that you’re talented, yet it falls on deaf ears. However, I think the cure for those feelings of inadequacy is surrounding yourself with amazing people who are just as creative, driven and positive as you are, but always making sure to be humble. Nobody likes a cocky bitch, ever, lolz.

Dan: You are speaking TRUTH in this interview, girl. Surrounding yourself with positivity is almost the only way to get through those moments of feeling inadequate. And you're right, nobody enjoys being around cockiness, even though there can be a lot of that in this industry.

As you surround yourself with driven and encouraging people, I know that also includes artists u look to for inspiration. Tell us about an artist/songwriter who inspires u. What about their artistry/ability would you like to emulate in your own?

Taylor: To kick it a bit old school, I’m gonna say Elton John because I think he was so groundbreaking and just what was needed in the world to move forward progressively. He was completely unafraid to be flamboyant and unapologetically homosexual in a time that it was still not acceptable in public overall. Plus, with Bernie Taupin on the lyrics and Elton on the melodies, they made some prettyyyyyyyy amazing music that still stands the test of time, if I don’t say so myself.

Dan: Elton is a legend and an icon, especially for what he did for queer visibility in the mainstream. I had to include him as a part of the PRIDE playlist. It would have been a crime not to, honestly.

I have mentioned earlier that u are pretty much on the go all the time, whether it's working on ur own stuff or writing for other artists. In the midst of everything u have going on, how do u manage a busy schedule and stress? How do you recharge when u need to?

Taylor: I actually work WAY better on a busy schedule, so I’m a fan of back to back sessions, all week long! But, when I do need a little break, I love getting out of LA for a sec and visiting places like San Diego, Palm Springs, Santa Barbra and more. I also love having parties with my friends, dancing around, being gay, playing beer pong. Oh, and Tequila. Tequila is always an answer to stress and busy schedules (Silver Tequila only though).

Dan: I think that LA is such an encompassing city that sometimes the only solution to getting a break is getting out. I do the same thing. Also, I did not know u liked playing beer pong! I sense a duel between you and me coming soon...

Looking past u only liking silver tequila (sorry I had to throw some shade), what do u think is the biggest misconception people have about working in this industry?

Taylor: Oh lordy, probably that you can just show up in town and become a super star. Sorry to say it, but being a cocky bitch doesn’t get you very far hahah. The only way you’re becoming an overnight pop star is if mommy and daddy are loaded, or a family member is tied into a label somehow. Gotta put in the work to really earn respect from people, at least in my book.

Dan: There are many, many people that agree with u! This industry easily and quickly exposes true talent and true intention. I love how honest and open u are.

Touching on your openness, how has ur identity influenced or affected your journey as a songwriter and artist?

Taylor: I think being gay totally influences my journey as both a songwriter and as an artist because it’s not, “normal”, per say. It doesn’t fit the cookie cutter mold of what a male pop artist has been for the past 5+ decades, so it’s sometimes difficult for people to want to get behind something still so new and not fully understood. But, even though it sometimes makes the journey harder, I wouldn’t change it for the world because I feel like it brings such a unique and interesting view to songs that straight men, and even women can’t entirely relate to.

Dan: I am holding onto hope that as time continues, more queer artists will be accepted as major label and mainstream like their straight counterparts. I think that progress in this aspect will really be made by people just like u, who are unapologetically themselves. What advice would you give to up and coming LGBTQ+ songwriters and artists?

Taylor: I would emphasize not trying to hide who you are, letting it all fall out, even if it’s hard to do. We’re in a time where LGBTQ kids need role models, people that they can say they want to grow up to be like. Unlike straight men and women, LGBTQ kids have had to feel the need to hide who they are from such a young age so as to “fit in” with normal, American society; now is the time for us to live our lives to the fullest so we can keep paving the road towards the future. (I felt like a motivational speaker there on a soap box lolz.)

Dan: U are dead on. The more LGBTQ artists and musicians that are in the spotlight, the more LGBTQ kids and youth will see that it really is okay to be themselves. We have to watch out for our LGBTQ youth as much as possible because our government doesn't seem to look out for them enough...

I am sure thinking through these questions has made u, in a way, look back on your own journey as an artist and songwriter. So what would you has been the biggest highlight of your career as an artist/songwriter so far?

Taylor: I think one of the coolest moments so far was opening for Bonnie McKee at OC Pride in 2014. Even though I now look back on my outfit and shake my damn head, it was so amazing to meet her in person, definitely one of my songwriting idols!

Dan: Hahaha, that's incredible. How cool that u were able to open for her at a Pride event! She is a songwriting queen. Definitely an idol of mine, too! (For those of you that don't know Bonnie, u can thank her for hits like 'Teenage Dream,' 'California Gurls,' 'Dynamite,' and 'Hold It Against Me.')

Taylor, it's time for my signature question. What artist/album/song have u had on repeat lately?

Taylor: Ok, album for SURE would be Kehlani’s, “Sweet Savage Sexy”: that shit is AMAZING. I’m also digging The 1975, Jon Bellion, Blackbear and Julia Michaels. “Issues”-Julia Michaels, “Do-Re-Mi”-Blackbear, “Escape”-Kehlani, “Bad Liar”-Selena Gomez and “Death Wish”-Terror Jr are definitely the go-to songs on repeat currently!!!

Dan: This list is SO solid. U know Kehlani has a soft spot in my heart. I was so excited to include her on SPREAD CH.2 as well!

Now that we are sadly wrapping up this Artist Spotlight, how can we check out ur music and stay up to date with ur releases/posts? Anything we should especially be on the lookout for?

Taylor: My Insta/Twitter handle is @TaylorJamison77, and you can listen to my shit on Spotify, Apple Music, iHeart Radio and more under Taylor Jamison! Also, you can check out Matthew John’s EP, “Chain Reaction” on all streaming sites as well (I wrote the title track, “Chain Reaction”!). In the next few months I’ll be having some new music come out, as well as some more releases with other artists (follow me on Insta for the most up to date info, as I share mostly on there. Plus, my InstaStory’s are usually pretty fun, from what I’ve heard!)

Dan: I can attest that Taylor is very fun to follow on social media! Everyone PLEASE go check his pages and his music out, and then go give his song '(Never Gonna) Change For You' another listen on PRIDE! Thank u so much for being so real with us, girl. I cannot wait to see ur name in lights one day.

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Thank u for tuning into the second SPREAD Artist Spotlight! Big thanks to Taylor Jamison for serving some tea today and giving us a closer look at his career as a gay singer/songwriter.

I hope u all enjoy the last few days of PRIDE month! I can't believe it's almost over. In just a couple of days a new playlist will be gracing the SPREAD website, and this one is about to be veryyy refreshing... ;)

Cover e v e r y inch!

#interview #spread #playlist #pride #month #lgbtq #queer #community #artist #musician #songwriter #los angeles #taylor jamison #apple music #spotify #youtube #blog #new music #pop #explore #cover every inch

[ginnyzero]

Project Runway Thoughts

(Originally Posted in Nov. 2017)

I'm almost done with Project Runway. Depending on the results of next week's finale part two, I might end up parting ways with the new seasons and go hunting down older seasons on DVD. This is really difficult for me to write and say mainly because I went to school (at the Academy of Art) for Fashion Design. I love Fashion Design. And Project Runway actually put a flashlight into that world so people can start to understand what goes into their clothes. (I don't care if you shop at Wal-Mart or Haute Couture, the process is the same.)

Personally, I'd never go on Project Runway. I know we should never say things like "I'll never do this." I said that I'd never publish an original book, but here I am. (Granted I'm self publishing so my reasons for not publishing aren't exactly valid.) But I tried going the traditional route and querying agents (probably the wrong ones) and tried to get a book deal which was something I said I'd never do. But here is one thing I put my foot down on, I do not want and will not go onto a reality show like Project Runway or Fashion Star or 24 Hour Catwalk or Launch My Line.

These shows don't do what they claim to do. Project Runway is "on the search for the next big American Fashion Designer." I can name two people from Project Runway that have any sort of success, three if I include one that turned into a television personality and four if we include the teacher who just keeps showing back up in more Project Runway franchises. Christian Siriano, Austin Scarlet (wedding dresses at Kleinfelds), Santino Rice (television personality) and Nick Verreos (and let's be fair, Nick was already a teacher at FIDM before he was on Project Runway.)  We're at sixteen seasons with at least 12 to 16 fashion designers at the start of each season. Four "success" stories. That's close to 200 designers. Siriano was from season four. Austin, season 2. So, it's been 12 years at least since any "break out" fashion designer has made any sort of success for themselves from Project Runway that "matters" in the terms of fashion world expectations. That is a runway show every season and product in major distributors like Barney's, Macy's, Saks and so on. (Boutiques on top of those are nice too.)

The real success of Project Runway is Tim Gunn. And he's not even designing clothes!

The prizes change my season but usually you get around $100,000, a new car, free makeup help from the beauty sponsor for your the show you do with the $100,000 (because that's how far 100 grand is going to get you) and floor space/online retail space at the accessory wall sponsor. And you used to get a sewing and embroidery studio from Brother and a position as guest editor at a fashion magazine. But those two prizes (probably the most two useful prizes outside of the money) have vanished in recent seasons. These prizes honestly, don't get you very far in the world of runway fashion, that is ready to wear.

Of course, this is reality television and what they claim and what happens really are two different things. But my point is that Project Runway isn't the 'magical' gateway to success that they claim their winners are going to have. It's not really a "once in a lifetime" opportunity (especially if they come back for All Stars, or three seasons in a row). It's entertainment. Entertainment where 90% of America watches and goes "Who would actually wear that?"

At best, Project Runway is a platform, a platform to get your 'name' or brand out there. Then, it's back to the grind. You have to do what Siriano did. You have to roll your product into Barney's, sell the buyer on your product and be able to back it up with a manufacturer to produce your product. That is why Siriano was a success. He took his few moments of fame from Project Runway and kept up his courage and went after the big buyers and it worked. And it worked because he backed up his sales with good product and built good will. "Oh, he's a new designer, but his product doesn't have strings, comes pressed with the proper labels and tags and actually sells. We'll buy from him again." And many, many designers aren't prepared to be able to take that platform and turn it into something marketable and make it really "big" in the industry.

And let's face it, making it "big" in the fashion industry is really difficult. It's an industry worth trillions of dollars and the major brands were established decades ago and bought out by LVHM or Fendi. You are swimming in a current against major corporations with billions of dollars of advertisement and marketing and production money to throw around (even when a lot of these brands didn't make money for their first couple of decades) and designers are notorious to be sharks! I've had loving, well meaning friends and family go "I can't wait to see your clothes on a runway." Or. "You should go on one of those fashion shows." And I have to quietly back up and be polite about how I explain the realities of where money goes in fashion and I don't have that money or the desire to go on a reality television show.

That's also not the type of fashion I do.

This season of Project Runway has been divisive. Between the twins being twins and then the cheating scandal and how it was unprofessionally handled by both the contestants and the producers and the really crazy designers in general. (I mean it, was there something in the Los Angeles water?) I wasn't fond of the briefs either. It's produced a lot of reactions. Then, instead of treating it like a contest and having a final three, there was a final five. (Which to be honest, all 5 were getting 10 grand to show no matter what but to string two of them along that much longer for an additional 100 grand is cruel and not worth it to the audience.) And we're having the same type of edit that we're having when Ashley Neil Tipton won. I've been getting a little put out and putting in plus sized models isn't enough to make me overlook how scripted, over dramatized and downright biased Project Runway has become.

If Brandon wins, as much as I want to support a fellow designer from San Francisco/Academy of Art Alum, I'm done.

I'm on my last straw. And it's not Brandon. It's sadly, Tim Gunn. It's Heidi. It's Zac Posen. It's Nina. And it's about Margarita. I don't like Margarita. I find her unprofessional. (I take it badly when you lie, are hypocritical or talk about other people in a foreign language right in front of them.) However, Margarita has a very specific tropical/warm weather style. It's a valid style. And I liked some of her pieces. It's been on Project Runway before. Uli and Anya managed to run with tropical styles all the way to the finales. Others got thrown off for having poor taste. Tropical style has been on Project Runway for years.

What hasn't been on Project Runway is the sniping, condescending attitude about warm weather/tropical fashion. In the one model off duty challenge, they very snidely/condescendingly called Margarita's outfit "very Miami." (Margarita responded by lying about whose idea it was to make the look the way it was and threw the blame on the model instead of owning her look. One of the reasons, I don't like her.) Apparently, Miami is now the armpit of American Fashion Centers. (I knew it was number three or four, not that it was smelly and the inbred cousin which the tones used in the show made it out to be like.) Now, normally, Tim Gunn is above this sort of nonsense. The reason why America loves Tim Gunn is not only is he honest, he's fair and he's encouraging. He does all his critiques out of a sense of love and desire to push the designers to be the best at what they do and not be anyone else.

Tim Gunn even used his save on Margarita because his advice was what got her sent to the bottom, so much, that they eliminated her. I understood his motivations even if I didn't agree with the save.

So, you can imagine my horror and shock when Tim goes and visits Margarita in San Juan, Puerto Rico and is looking at her collection and tells her to "Take the girl off the beach and put her on the streets (of New York.)" Did falling down a flight of stairs do something to his brain? Where was the Tim that told Uli and Anya to embrace their tropical loving selves? What happened? Why the reversal of 15 seasons of precedent? Especially after he saved her because of her color loving tropical looks gone a tad bit wrong.

And then Heidi compounded the matter by telling Margarita during the project critiques that she needed to remember that she was showing in New York City and not Miami.

This is bullshit. Everything gets shown at New York City. New York City is this amazing melting pot of a place with fashion designers of all calibers and walks of life trying to get their visions out there. It's also the Spring/Summer collection showings where the really crazy neons and bright colors come out on every runway imaginable. No one in New York is going to bat an eye at Margarita's bright bold colors and crazy prints. Because it's New York City, the home of beautiful crazy murals and boroughs of every racial type on this Earth. And on top of it, who cares if Margarita's style is a bit more Miami? From Puerto Rico, Miami is the logical place for Margarita to show her later fashion shows. Not New York. (And why the disdain for Miami? Why? I know it's Florida but still, major fashion center.)

They wouldn't have said this to Anya. They definitely wouldn't have said this to Uli. They didn't push either of those two to "make New York fashion." And I know this because being so focused on designing fashion the last month or so instead of writing, I've watched both of their seasons! (Anya's season is one of my favorites, as it was one of the first seasons I actually broke down and watched Project Runway. I didn't have a lot of television growing up/during high school.)

This hypocrisy disgusts me. I hope against hope that it's the producers at Weinstein butting their noses in where they don't belong. But with Tim Gunn now being a producer on the show as well, you'd hope he'd stand up to them a little and go "No. I'm going to let Margarita design for her beach girl. Because that is Margarita's customer."

As for Brandon, it was interesting to see the inside of the new Fashion Building at the Academy (that looks exactly the same as the inside of the building where I went when I attended. Imagination when it comes to decorating, the Academy has not.) However, Brandon's collection looks to be exactly the same things he's done all season and gotten no negative push back on from the judges. He hasn't evolved. He can't tailor. As a fashion designer, I don't know who is going to wear his clothes. And instead of producing two or three groups of clothes for his collection, he produced one. One set of textiles, one set look. And it still looks like it belongs in a video game.

It's Neil-Tipton all over again. It's the producers going "let's choose a story and a winner of said story... oh this guy is a sweet nice guy with an odd look, let's push him through to the win." It may not be as politically correct as Neil-Tipton's win, but it still feels scripted. (They didn't give him a conflict or something to overcome, instead the twins and cheating theatrics took 'center stage' as a distraction.) I saw exactly what I expected to see from the collection pieces he showed to Tim and the judges. That's not what I expect from a Project Runway winner.

(Good grief, if he had just tailored some of his clothes instead of doing all oversize. But this is the Academy here, my expectations on drafting and sewing skills aren't that high. Still, there are books. Books you're supposed to buy for classes. Books he could use that he was back in San Francisco and not on the show. Metric Pattern Cutting. I own all three books and two of them I didn't need to buy because I'm in Women's Wear!)

We'll see how next week's finale goes. I just hope I don't end up heartbroken.

[cryptnus-blog]

An In-Depth Conversation With Coinbase Engineer Josh Ellithorpe

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/08/an-in-depth-conversation-with-coinbase-engineer-josh-ellithorpe/

An In-Depth Conversation With Coinbase Engineer Josh Ellithorpe

Interview

There’s been a lot going on within the crypto-ecosystem and this week news.Bitcoin.com chatted with Josh Ellithorpe, Senior Software Engineer at Coinbase. Ellithorpe explains to our readers how he got into bitcoin and about when he eventually joined the San Francisco-based cryptocurrency firm about a year and a half ago. The software developer is also a Bitcoin Cash (BCH) supporter and we discuss some of the reasons to why he likes the BCH environment. Ellithorpe chatted further with us about some of the hot topics concerning the BCH protocol, a few weeks before the proposed upgrade scheduled for this November.

Also Read: Bitmain Unveils New 18 Terahash Water-Cooled Bitcoin Miner

Cryptocurrencies Offer an Even Playing Field That’s More Appealing Than the Current Monetary System

News.Bitcoin.com (BC): Can you tell our readers how you got into cryptocurrencies?

Josh Ellithorpe, Senior Software Engineer at Coinbase

Josh Ellithorpe (JE): I actually got into cryptocurrencies really early. I remember looking at the original Bitcoin white paper back in 2009 and I was really intrigued by it and looked at the software. I didn’t really get into the ecosystem at that point as I was just intellectually curious. The idea that we could have some form of digital money that couldn’t be copied was very revolutionary to someone like me, who has been in the computer science space for a really long time. So I didn’t know if anything would happen with Bitcoin when I researched it for the first time and I wasn’t like; “This is going to be the next big thing” right away. Then I just got busy and started doing some other work and rotated back into the cryptocurrency space around 2012 and started looking at crypto more seriously.

Then I started reading more about it and saw all this cool stuff going on and said to myself, man this is really going to change things. What excited me about Bitcoin was the monetary theory behind it and I didn’t like the idea that governments can just print money. I didn’t like the way the money funnel worked. The money funnel was — the Federal Reserve loans money to organizations and they promise to pay it back but it allows the government to spend more than they actually have. It allowed for a debt system that I thought really caused harm to the average person. Fiat currencies that are not backed by anything and really have a shelf life — the US dollar has been very lucky that it hasn’t yet had the same problems that pretty much every other fiat currency faces. That’s mainly because of our government, the military enforcement, the petro-dollar and a bunch of other economic factors that are not guaranteed to last.

Cryptocurrencies offered an even playing field which was more appealing than the current monetary system. But at the time, because the ecosystem was so volatile, I didn’t want to join the industry.   

BC: Can you tell us why you decided to join the San Francisco firm Coinbase?

JE: In 2012 you didn’t know if a cryptocurrency exchange would be shut down or not. So I started working at a couple of other startups here in San Francisco and spent a long time working on things like container infrastructure — Deployments for big companies doing infrastructure automation and I did that for a few years. But I kept loving crypto, kept using it, and I always had bitcoin on my phone. I always wanted it for utility and never really cared about it as an investment angle — Although I don’t mind it going up in value either, making money was never my motivation.

Josh Ellithorpe chats about bitcoin data centers, Cash Shuffle, developer funding, markets, and more with Ryan X Charles.

I actually went to Coinbase to sell them on the infrastructure I had built. I knew that Qualcomm was using some of the stuff I built and Ericcson was using some of the stuff that I built — So I said. man wouldn’t it be cool if Coinbase ran my infrastructure. So I went and met the team’s infrastructure guy and his name is Rob and he’s now at Google. We chatted for a long time and we showed each other the things we had built because I didn’t realize how custom everything was at Coinbase. I showed him all the stuff I had built and he said that’s really cool but I want to show you all the stuff we built, because we actually have an amazing infrastructure team. So I went and he showed me all of the infrastructure and showed me all the cool tools that Coinbase had built to automate deploys, and a bunch of stuff they had done for the AWS infrastructure. I looked at it and said — you guys have a lot of really awesome custom stuff, I have a more general purpose solution for enterprises and to be honest you don’t need what I have, because you’ve actually done it right and have a really cool set of tools.

Because I didn’t try to sell him on my stuff we became good friends. We went to Defcon together, we hung out for a while and he kept trying to get me to go to Coinbase. So at this time, I felt the space had matured and Coinbase had a good reputation with regulators from Europe and the US. I applied at Coinbase when I decided to leave Apcera and they offered me the gig, and that was about a year and a half ago.     

BC: You are vocal Bitcoin Cash supporter and have recently been interviewed by Ryan X Charles and last May spoke at the Satoshi Vision conference in Tokyo. What do you like about Bitcoin Cash?

JE: The thing I like about Bitcoin Cash is the utility, that’s what brought me into Bitcoin. So I never cared about it going to the moon or if I was going to get a Lambo. That was never what inspired me. My motivation was fair and sound money for the people with no middleman — That’s what I wanted.

I got really disappointed with the roadmap for BTC — And I just disagreed. I wish them the best of luck with the Lightning Network but to me, that’s not Bitcoin. To me, Bitcoin was something that was going to scale on-chain. That would have higher resource requirements that would eventually go from the user-sphere to the business and data center-sphere and I was ok with that right from the beginning. That’s how I thought Bitcoin scaled from a ton of businesses building awesome products and having a business model that generated revenue and the whole world competing for mining.

Then people started saying things that didn’t make sense to me. Like home-users will always need to run bitcoind and that raspberry pi node matters. I do agree that some people want to validate their own transactions and ideally, it would be nice if prosumers and higher end tech users still could run a node, I think that would be cool but not necessary. As long as there are enough validating nodes dispersed amongst enough businesses, and enough locations, then I’m fine with that.

If the network is lying to you already, the experiment has failed.

When I start seeing companies getting demonized that was also another red flag. Like Bitpay has done a huge amount of groundwork for the space. They make it simple for people to easily take crypto and decide on how much of that crypto they want to hold and they get to split the price at point-of-sale. Those are very important features for a cryptocurrency to actually gain traction. To me, I saw the BTC community become extremely toxic, extremely anti-business, and to me anti-scale.

Bitcoin.com interview with Josh Ellithorpe at Satoshi’s Vision Conference in Tokyo Japan. 

BC: There’s been a lot of BCH development lately, is there any specific projects that you look forward to?

JE: Honestly, there’s a token explosion. So many proposals, and I haven’t tried them all yet but I’ve looked into most of them. I’ve definitely looked into the Wormhole stuff, which is really cool, but I haven’t really used it to a huge extent. Then the Recursive Smelting proposal that looks pretty neat too. You have SLP which is SPV friendly and it already has a built-in wallet and Jonald and team did great work there. And I know he worked with Unwriter on that and leveraging Bitdb is really cool. Then there’s the Group proposal that’s one of the more heavyweight protocol changes out of any of the token proposals so far. But it is a well-crafted proposal but I don’t know if we should necessarily make changes at the base protocol.  

BC: How do you feel about the current debate between Bitcoin ABC and Nchain over consensus changes?

JE: I think its ok that people disagree, but it’s how people disagree. I’m very disappointed with how some people are disagreeing.

I think there are constructive ways to talk about differences and non-constructive ways. Attacks on Twitter are really inexcusable behavior and this — let’s debate this on Twitter — is bullshit.    

BC: Do you think that it will all work out?

JE: Here’s a couple of facts. Bitcoin SV doesn’t exist — Does not exist. If people think that hash power is going to run and grab a full node client that has been on the market for less than a month that no one’s ever run then they don’t understand economics. Miners are not going to take a chance and run brand new software the day it comes out. To me, that makes no sense from a miners perspective. I understand points on both sides and I’m actually not a fan of any camp’s full proposal — So it makes it difficult for me.

BC: How do you feel about Bitcoin Unlimited’s approach?

JE: So I think that is a very smart approach and ultimately hash power is going to decide on the way it goes. No one’s talking replay protection so hash power and the market are going to decide.

What do you think about our discussion with Josh Ellithorpe? Let us know what you think about this interview in the comment section below. 

Images via Shutterstock, Youtube, and Pixabay. 

At Bitcoin.com there’s a bunch of free helpful services. For instance, have you seen our Tools page? You can even lookup the exchange rate for a transaction in the past. Or calculate the value of your current holdings. Or create a paper wallet. And much more.

[choicesruinedmylife]

Background (Carissa and Imani)

Okay so here is a little background on my MC’s for The Royal Romance and Endless Summer!

Carissa Stein

Carissa Stein is the MC in TRR. She is 24 years old and is originally from Huntington Beach, California. She has an older brother named Ezekiel and a younger sister named Imani. Her parents are, currently, unnamed. Growing up, she enjoyed being out in nature (especially the beach). She was the more artistically inclined sibling and studied theatre and music in college. She got a scholarship for vocal performance to a private college in San Diego. After she graduated college, she moved to New York in hopes of joining a theatre troupe. Unfortunately, none of the shows that she had gotten into lasted very long (or paid very well) so she worked at the bar on the side. She had been in New York for about 3 years before leaving for Cordonia.

Carissa is African-American. Her father is a second generation German-Jew from Pennsylvania and her mother was born in Zimbabwe but moved to Florida when she was 7. They both worked very hard to pull themselves out of the lower middle class. Her father was a lawyer (and very good at it) while her mother was a professor of marine biology. They both pushed all three of the children to excel at their talents. They were proud of Carissa for getting a scholarship in vocal performance but were also disappointed in her not continuing her education at a conservatory. Carissa felt that if she got into a prestigious Broadway show, it would help to show them that this is a fruitful career.

Carissa is about 5′6, the shortest of her siblings (they used to tease her a lot about it). Her hair is dark brown and curly. However, in the first TRR book, she had it straightened and dyed at the tips. She decided to let it go natural because it was better for her hair than getting it straightened all the time (and Drake liked it curly). Carissa has the body of a dancer and is pretty lean. She enjoys dancing and took ballet classes for 13 years before she left for college. She is usually one of the more attractive females in the room. Her sense of style is more for comfort than looking good. Living in the spotlight in Cordonia changed that though. She is most comfortable in a pair of jeans/leggings, a t-shirt, and flip flops or Converse. Cordonia has helped her appreciate fashion a little more but she does enjoy not having to put a lot of effort into looking “presentable”.

Personality wise, she loves to tease her friends. Carissa is a true ambient. Her Myers-Briggs personality type is INFP. Most of the time, it takes her a bit of time to open up to new people but when she is thrown into a situation where she knows nobody, she has learned to take risks and open up to make friends. She tries not to show how easily she is hurt by people’s words and does a good job at it. This was a hurdle that she had to get over because being in show business means that she needs to be able to take criticism, even if it is harsh, well. Her younger sister, Imani, was always her harshest critic and helped her learn to not let words cut deep. She is also very loyal and will treat close friends like family. However, if she will cut people off if they hurt her. Carissa, usually, sees the good side in everyone and really hurts her when they show a side that is completely different from what she sees. This is why she is so drawn to Drake. He puts up a tough exterior but she is able to see past that. She is also drawn to his loyalty to his friends which she really admires. A lot of people in her life have not been loyal or kept their promises to her. Sadly, her family had a huge fight, which is part of the reason why she went to find work in New York instead of in Los Angeles. She has not spoken to any of them since she went to New York. Getting the opportunity to go to Cordonia was, in a sense, a fresh start. Being in the states, she met people that constantly reminded her of her family. She thought that she could maybe escape this by leaving for Cordonia. (Which she did because the people she has met along the way are nothing like her family). Carissa is kind of a party animal and honestly enjoys alcohol. She doesn’t drink to get drunk (most of the time) but likes the taste of it. She has a very infectious smile and laugh. Her friends, back in the States, found her very comedic in her mannerisms and the facial expressions that she made. She is also an excellent storyteller. The way she speaks enraptures the listeners and leaves them wanting to hear more. She tends to exaggerate her stories slightly in order to give them more excitement and appeal.

Carissa has only had one serious relationship. It was with one of her costars in the first show that she got a role in. It lasted about a year and a half and ended because he got an offer to go on tour with a major theatre company. Carissa tells people that it ended mutually but he was the one to make the decision that long-distance would not work. Since then, she hasn’t been with anyone besides the rare one-night stands that her friends would convince her to have. She never really found any of the guys that she met interesting or “boyfriend material” until she met Drake. Falling for Drake is thrilling for her because she has never felt a connecting this strong with anyone in her life.

Imani Stein

Imani Stein is the MC in Endless Summer. She is 20 years old. Being the youngest of her siblings, she was used to be treated as a baby.This continued through her teenage years when her parents would give her strict curfews and more restrictions than her siblings had at the same age. Because of this, she would rebel and sneak out of the house at night to go surfing or go hang out at bars (using her sister Carissa’s ID). Her decision to move across the country and go to Hartfield University is part of the reason why the family had that huge fight. They had a lot of expectations of her and would not pay for her college if she wasn’t going to use her brain for something big. This pissed Imani off and all she could do was talk about how they pressured her too hard to be the best in areas she didn’t want to be the best in. Her siblings tried to convince her to just listen to the parents until she was done with college (which is what they did) but she wanted to do things her way. Originally, her parents were going to allow her to minor in photography and film but they saw how stubborn she was and cut her off. Growing up, Imani was the star student. Her IQ was found to be 153. She could have skipped a couple of grades but her parents thought it was better for her to stay with kids her age. However, they did make her take advanced math and science classes in high school. Her mom had her doing outside math program and was pressuring her to try for medical school. She ended up becoming very withdrawn and distant from her parents as time went on because of how they only seemed to love her when she was getting A’s. She also felt that her siblings were too busy and too old to spend time talking to her so she never reached out when they moved away. Her brother, Ezekiel, is in the Navy and had left for deployment shortly after she graduated from high school. She was closest with him, even though he was 7 years older, because they had very similar personalities. Both of them are very charismatic and feisty (both of their Myers-Briggs are ENFP). Ezekiel pushed her to excel in athletics. He taught her the basics of fighting (which was good because Imani has a tendency to push the wrong peoples’ buttons). Ezekiel kind of regretted it when she was younger because she would turn to using her fists instead of her words when she got mad. whoops. Her relationship with Carissa is not as strong because Carissa was “too sensitive” for Imani’s tastes. Imani is very blunt and when they were younger, Carissa was easily offended by what she would say.

Imani is highly independent and follows her passions rather than what would be most stable. Her most long lasting passion was photography and modeling. In high school, she took photography classes and learned that she was pretty damn good at it. Sometimes she would ditch school and drive to open castings for models and would land a few jobs. She put away a good portion of that money into a savings account and that is how she was able to pay for Hartfield without her parents support. Paying for college herself really helped her to become confident in herself. She excelled quickly in the film department and rose to the top. She is a natural born leader and this helped a lot for directing and telling the models/actors how she envisioned a certain shot. Most of the time, she trusts her gut instincts rather than what people tell her should be done. Because of her childhood, Imani developed a pretty bad temper. She never liked being wrong or not being the best at something, mostly out of fear that her parents would get upset. She got better at learning to control it as she got older but sometimes it creeps back into her life. One of her fears is that she will hurt someone she loves with her words. Deep down, she blames herself for what she did to her family. She hasn’t heard from them in two years but is too prideful to be the first one to reach out. Naturally, she told herself to forget about them and focus on making her name in the film/photography industry. Imani has the ability to be pretty manipulative (definitely learned this from her household). She knows exactly how much to say in order to convince someone to take her side. She also doesn’t back down from an argument, which is sometimes why she gets into physical fights. Most of the time, she can twist someone’s words around on them and tear down whatever it is keeping them in that argument. (She usually goes for the jugular and points out every one of their flaws and using their weaknesses/fears against them).

Socially, Imani is like a butterfly. She can roam from group to group and blend in seamlessly. She knows just the right things to say to get peoples’ attention to be on her. Like her sister, she is a great storyteller but she is even better at flattery. At parties in college, Diego was always able to find her because she was usually surrounded by a crowd of people. She was a social butterfly and had friends in every group. To her, the only friend she needed was Diego. He was the only one that she found able to keep up with her ideas and the adventures that she wanted to have. Whenever she had modeling gigs in another state or country, she would drag him along and use this opportunity to film their experiences. Getting to go to La Huerta seemed like the best adventure she would have that year. At night, she imagined the travel video that she would be able to make. She saw every shot in her head and how she would edit the video to make the memories last forever.

Imani is 5′8, most of her height coming from her legs. (She had the same inseam as her dad who was 5′11). In high school, she ran track and placed at each meet in the 100m sprints/hurdles and 300m hurdles. She enjoys working out and will spend at least 30 minutes in the gym each day. She spent a lot of time surfing as a teen, which definitely helped when she played quuk’tanoi. She is a quick learner when it comes to athletic skills which was helpful when Estela and Jake helped her learn how to fight against more advanced opponents. Imani wears her hair in a high ponytail or messy bun. She likes it to be out of her face because she is always out doing something. Most of the time, she enjoys wearing shorts and a tank top. Living at Hartfield made her have to adjust her sense of style for the weather. In California, she would always be in shorts and no shoes with a bikini in her car, just in case. Imani is just as beautiful as her older sister but has more youthful features and a little bit darker skin because of all the time she spends outdoors. They are similar enough that Imani has been able to use Carissa’s old ID for a few years in order to buy alcohol and get into bars. Still, Diego teases her that she is immortal because she has looked the same since she was 12 (the only thing that changed was her height and foot size).

Imani had never had an official relationship before Jake. She tended to just hook up with guys and forget about them the next day. For her, life was supposed to be one big adventure where she should have complete freedom and control over her life. (Plus she was also more attracted to older men and there weren’t any cute ones in the Hartfield area). Of course she had thought of what the perfect guy for her would be like but she didn’t think there was someone out there like that until she met Jake. She always dreamed of living on a ranch in some little town that no one knows about and a ton of animals. There would be a lot of beer and whiskey and she was surrounded completely by nature. In this imagination of hers, the guy was Scott Eastwood or one of her favorite country artists. The guy was always a little bit of an asshole towards everyone except for her. They lived a simple life but it was calm and perfect. She was immediately drawn to Jake because of his sarcastic responses and how perfectly he fit the description of her perfect life. She teases him about how when they get off the island, she won’t be able to wear her favorite heels because then she would be taller than him. (I put Jake at about 5′10).

#carissa #imani #choices stories you play #choices endless summer #choices trr #mc background #drake x carissa #jake x imani #choicesruinedmylife

[joejstrickl]

Spying Brands Face A Reckoning

Marketers take note, in the last 20 years, no changes to data and privacy rules have been more significant than the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GPDR), set to go into effect in May 2018. What’s important about GPDR is that it asserts that the personal data of EU citizens is private property owned by the individual citizen. Here’s a short summary from Shift Communications’ website (or see the longer text from the EU website).

Right to be forgotten: EU citizens may request to be forgotten by any entity; for example, an EU citizen could request that Google delete any data it has about them.

Right to access: EU citizens may request any and all data that a company has stored about them, free of charge.

Privacy by design: Rather than be an add-on, companies are expected to design their systems for privacy from the ground up. This also includes collecting the minimum required data needed to conduct business operations.

Data portability: EU citizens will have the right to request data about themselves in a common, machine-readable format and be able to give that data to a different company if they so choose.

Strengthened consent: Companies doing business with EU citizens will be required to vastly simplify consent requests – no more pages of unintelligible user licenses or tricks designed to mislead consumers into clicking/giving up their personal data.

Perhaps more significant to marketers is the ePrivacy Regulations, which build on the definitions of privacy and data that were introduced within the GDPR, and act to clarify and enhance them. In particular, the areas of unsolicited marketing, cookies and confidentiality are covered in a more specific context.

Together, these regulations will make it more difficult for online marketers and media in the EU to collect personal information about users without their consent, or as Bob Hoffman more honestly says, “It will make it hard for them to track us all over the web and collect, exploit, and sell the information they are harvesting without our explicit consent or knowledge.”

Brands that collect and use data on a smaller scale are less likely to be impacted. In some cases where data is out of compliance, re-opting in their existing marketing lists and updating landing page registration forms may be required. But for the most part, brands will have little problem using their own data and their own domains. In a legal analysis from a firm hired by DCN, they offer, “Companies that create trusted, premium digital experiences, enjoy direct relationships with consumers and do not rely on tracking consumers at such a large scale may find new leverage and opportunities in the marketplace.”

It’s Google and Facebook who will be hit the hardest. And like any food chain (or perhaps a better thing to say would be ‘gravy train’) the impact cascades out to media agencies and some brands, who are mounting major lobbying efforts to prevent many of the changes from coming into effect. In an open letter to members of the EU parliament, a consortium of advertising, marketing and media companies concluded with this fallacy, “ePrivacy Regulation threatens the data-driven advertising business model of European press publishers and other online media and services.”

Isn’t all advertising data-driven?

If anything, the objections from these companies attest to the fact that much of the online advertising industry has prospered by adapting and evolving increasingly sophisticated and ethically questionable tracking and surveillance practices.

There seems to be trend happening in the world right now around the idea of reckoning. Two weeks ago here on Branding Strategy Insider, I offered the idea that “there is an ‘upside down’ for everything.” It’s getting more difficult to hide activities, practices and behaviors that are problematic. The online advertising industry has reached a point where a reckoning is needed.

Nobody doubts the potential for rich data to positively impact all aspects of society. But if governments were collecting and using the level of information held by Google and Facebook (they likely already have access), we’d be in an uproar with cries of tyranny and legitimate concerns about secret police. It seems that European policy makers have remembered their history by acknowledging the growing risk and doing something about it.

Becoming GPDR compliant is probably a good idea for every brand, even if you don’t interact with EU citizens. But more importantly, a renewed importance for brands to be transparent with customers about what’s being collected, and how it’s being used will be important to continue to win trust. And not the empty talk of transparency from Facebook, Google, IAB, 4As, and others.

It’s likely the manner in which online advertising operates today is going to have some significant and fundamental change. The transition will be bumpy for some, so it’s important to think ahead. An extreme exercise for brand marketers to consider might be to ask their teams an important question: “If we couldn’t use online as a direct response medium for marketing, what would we do, and how would we get the customer information we need?”

Bob Hoffman really says it right when he concludes, “The online advertising industry does not need to spy on us in order to thrive. Every other advertising medium has done quite well, thank you, without trampling on democratic principles of privacy and security. Tracking, surveillance marketing, and the current model of ad tech are affronts to the values of free societies. The ePrivacy Regulation is a sound and reasonable reaction to our industry’s inability to exercise a mature degree of restraint or self-control.”

The Blake Project Can Help: Disruptive Brand Strategy Workshop

Build A Human Centric Brand. Join us for The Un-Conference: 360 Degrees of Brand Strategy for a Changing World, April 2-4, 2018 in San Diego, California. A fun, competitive-learning experience reserved for 50 marketing oriented leaders and professionals.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

[glenmenlow]

Spying Brands Face A Reckoning

Marketers take note, in the last 20 years, no changes to data and privacy rules have been more significant than the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GPDR), set to go into effect in May 2018. What’s important about GPDR is that it asserts that the personal data of EU citizens is private property owned by the individual citizen. Here’s a short summary from Shift Communications’ website (or see the longer text from the EU website).

Right to be forgotten: EU citizens may request to be forgotten by any entity; for example, an EU citizen could request that Google delete any data it has about them.

Right to access: EU citizens may request any and all data that a company has stored about them, free of charge.

Privacy by design: Rather than be an add-on, companies are expected to design their systems for privacy from the ground up. This also includes collecting the minimum required data needed to conduct business operations.

Data portability: EU citizens will have the right to request data about themselves in a common, machine-readable format and be able to give that data to a different company if they so choose.

Strengthened consent: Companies doing business with EU citizens will be required to vastly simplify consent requests – no more pages of unintelligible user licenses or tricks designed to mislead consumers into clicking/giving up their personal data.

Perhaps more significant to marketers is the ePrivacy Regulations, which build on the definitions of privacy and data that were introduced within the GDPR, and act to clarify and enhance them. In particular, the areas of unsolicited marketing, cookies and confidentiality are covered in a more specific context.

Together, these regulations will make it more difficult for online marketers and media in the EU to collect personal information about users without their consent, or as Bob Hoffman more honestly says, “It will make it hard for them to track us all over the web and collect, exploit, and sell the information they are harvesting without our explicit consent or knowledge.”

Brands that collect and use data on a smaller scale are less likely to be impacted. In some cases where data is out of compliance, re-opting in their existing marketing lists and updating landing page registration forms may be required. But for the most part, brands will have little problem using their own data and their own domains. In a legal analysis from a firm hired by DCN, they offer, “Companies that create trusted, premium digital experiences, enjoy direct relationships with consumers and do not rely on tracking consumers at such a large scale may find new leverage and opportunities in the marketplace.”

It’s Google and Facebook who will be hit the hardest. And like any food chain (or perhaps a better thing to say would be ‘gravy train’) the impact cascades out to media agencies and some brands, who are mounting major lobbying efforts to prevent many of the changes from coming into effect. In an open letter to members of the EU parliament, a consortium of advertising, marketing and media companies concluded with this fallacy, “ePrivacy Regulation threatens the data-driven advertising business model of European press publishers and other online media and services.”

Isn’t all advertising data-driven?

If anything, the objections from these companies attest to the fact that much of the online advertising industry has prospered by adapting and evolving increasingly sophisticated and ethically questionable tracking and surveillance practices.

There seems to be trend happening in the world right now around the idea of reckoning. Two weeks ago here on Branding Strategy Insider, I offered the idea that “there is an ‘upside down’ for everything.” It’s getting more difficult to hide activities, practices and behaviors that are problematic. The online advertising industry has reached a point where a reckoning is needed.

Nobody doubts the potential for rich data to positively impact all aspects of society. But if governments were collecting and using the level of information held by Google and Facebook (they likely already have access), we’d be in an uproar with cries of tyranny and legitimate concerns about secret police. It seems that European policy makers have remembered their history by acknowledging the growing risk and doing something about it.

Becoming GPDR compliant is probably a good idea for every brand, even if you don’t interact with EU citizens. But more importantly, a renewed importance for brands to be transparent with customers about what’s being collected, and how it’s being used will be important to continue to win trust. And not the empty talk of transparency from Facebook, Google, IAB, 4As, and others.

It’s likely the manner in which online advertising operates today is going to have some significant and fundamental change. The transition will be bumpy for some, so it’s important to think ahead. An extreme exercise for brand marketers to consider might be to ask their teams an important question: “If we couldn’t use online as a direct response medium for marketing, what would we do, and how would we get the customer information we need?”

Bob Hoffman really says it right when he concludes, “The online advertising industry does not need to spy on us in order to thrive. Every other advertising medium has done quite well, thank you, without trampling on democratic principles of privacy and security. Tracking, surveillance marketing, and the current model of ad tech are affronts to the values of free societies. The ePrivacy Regulation is a sound and reasonable reaction to our industry’s inability to exercise a mature degree of restraint or self-control.”

The Blake Project Can Help: Disruptive Brand Strategy Workshop

Build A Human Centric Brand. Join us for The Un-Conference: 360 Degrees of Brand Strategy for a Changing World, April 2-4, 2018 in San Diego, California. A fun, competitive-learning experience reserved for 50 marketing oriented leaders and professionals.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

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#IFTTT #WordPress

[markjsousa]

Spying Brands Face A Reckoning

Marketers take note, in the last 20 years, no changes to data and privacy rules have been more significant than the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GPDR), set to go into effect in May 2018. What’s important about GPDR is that it asserts that the personal data of EU citizens is private property owned by the individual citizen. Here’s a short summary from Shift Communications’ website (or see the longer text from the EU website).

Right to be forgotten: EU citizens may request to be forgotten by any entity; for example, an EU citizen could request that Google delete any data it has about them.

Right to access: EU citizens may request any and all data that a company has stored about them, free of charge.

Privacy by design: Rather than be an add-on, companies are expected to design their systems for privacy from the ground up. This also includes collecting the minimum required data needed to conduct business operations.

Data portability: EU citizens will have the right to request data about themselves in a common, machine-readable format and be able to give that data to a different company if they so choose.

Strengthened consent: Companies doing business with EU citizens will be required to vastly simplify consent requests – no more pages of unintelligible user licenses or tricks designed to mislead consumers into clicking/giving up their personal data.

Perhaps more significant to marketers is the ePrivacy Regulations, which build on the definitions of privacy and data that were introduced within the GDPR, and act to clarify and enhance them. In particular, the areas of unsolicited marketing, cookies and confidentiality are covered in a more specific context.

Together, these regulations will make it more difficult for online marketers and media in the EU to collect personal information about users without their consent, or as Bob Hoffman more honestly says, “It will make it hard for them to track us all over the web and collect, exploit, and sell the information they are harvesting without our explicit consent or knowledge.”

Brands that collect and use data on a smaller scale are less likely to be impacted. In some cases where data is out of compliance, re-opting in their existing marketing lists and updating landing page registration forms may be required. But for the most part, brands will have little problem using their own data and their own domains. In a legal analysis from a firm hired by DCN, they offer, “Companies that create trusted, premium digital experiences, enjoy direct relationships with consumers and do not rely on tracking consumers at such a large scale may find new leverage and opportunities in the marketplace.”

It’s Google and Facebook who will be hit the hardest. And like any food chain (or perhaps a better thing to say would be ‘gravy train’) the impact cascades out to media agencies and some brands, who are mounting major lobbying efforts to prevent many of the changes from coming into effect. In an open letter to members of the EU parliament, a consortium of advertising, marketing and media companies concluded with this fallacy, “ePrivacy Regulation threatens the data-driven advertising business model of European press publishers and other online media and services.”

Isn’t all advertising data-driven?

If anything, the objections from these companies attest to the fact that much of the online advertising industry has prospered by adapting and evolving increasingly sophisticated and ethically questionable tracking and surveillance practices.

There seems to be trend happening in the world right now around the idea of reckoning. Two weeks ago here on Branding Strategy Insider, I offered the idea that “there is an ‘upside down’ for everything.” It’s getting more difficult to hide activities, practices and behaviors that are problematic. The online advertising industry has reached a point where a reckoning is needed.

Nobody doubts the potential for rich data to positively impact all aspects of society. But if governments were collecting and using the level of information held by Google and Facebook (they likely already have access), we’d be in an uproar with cries of tyranny and legitimate concerns about secret police. It seems that European policy makers have remembered their history by acknowledging the growing risk and doing something about it.

Becoming GPDR compliant is probably a good idea for every brand, even if you don’t interact with EU citizens. But more importantly, a renewed importance for brands to be transparent with customers about what’s being collected, and how it’s being used will be important to continue to win trust. And not the empty talk of transparency from Facebook, Google, IAB, 4As, and others.

It’s likely the manner in which online advertising operates today is going to have some significant and fundamental change. The transition will be bumpy for some, so it’s important to think ahead. An extreme exercise for brand marketers to consider might be to ask their teams an important question: “If we couldn’t use online as a direct response medium for marketing, what would we do, and how would we get the customer information we need?”

Bob Hoffman really says it right when he concludes, “The online advertising industry does not need to spy on us in order to thrive. Every other advertising medium has done quite well, thank you, without trampling on democratic principles of privacy and security. Tracking, surveillance marketing, and the current model of ad tech are affronts to the values of free societies. The ePrivacy Regulation is a sound and reasonable reaction to our industry’s inability to exercise a mature degree of restraint or self-control.”

The Blake Project Can Help: Disruptive Brand Strategy Workshop

Build A Human Centric Brand. Join us for The Un-Conference: 360 Degrees of Brand Strategy for a Changing World, April 2-4, 2018 in San Diego, California. A fun, competitive-learning experience reserved for 50 marketing oriented leaders and professionals.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

[thesylvalining]

Once upon a time, there was a girl who needed a haircut. That girl, as fate would have it, was me. I’d just finished a bike ride (of course) and was wandering the side streets off Corso Giacomo Matteotti, daydreaming about handsome Italian men, my next bike ride and the pasta con pesto di pistacchio con gamberi Lisa crafted a couple days prior.

As I shoved the bangs out of my eyes for the umpteenth time, one of a plethora of parucchieres (hairdressers) materialized. Its name: Beauty Lab, in English. I thought, I’ll pop in and see if they can’t save me from a certain very near fate as a Shetland Pony…

Inside above the cool tiles, to the hum of hair dryers, the nice proprietor Ivana filled me out a little card and said come back at 1400. I burst back out into the heat, went back to the castle, made lunch, knocked off a few things on the to-do list and returned.

Twenty minutes, a coffee and a free, blunt bang trim (frangia taglia dritta) later (plus tip), I’d maybe found a(nother) job. Speaking Italian to Ivana with surprising success, a woman in the back waiting for a shampoo overheard me.

I joined her there and we exchanged contacts; her name was Laura and at that time all I knew of her was she had a two and a half-year-old daughter, was very nice, spoke English and was in need of a shampoo.

Fast forward a week or so in which Lisa and I had been literally inseparable (more on the shenanigans later). And during which I’d been able to watch the flag throwing ceremony of Faenza’s traditional Palio with all the other screaming, hormonal adolescents in the province of Ravenna.

  Now, on Tuesday Lisa and I were sitting in front of the fountain in Faenza at Fmarket, enjoying a victory drink or two during aperetivo.

I’d figured out — with ample and loving assistance from the Universe — how to remain in Italy until September and see about going broke in another country besides my own (I promised the whole tale; you shall have it soon). Another victory sip; the phone rings.

Now, over the same week I’d been playing a game of employment cat-and-mouse with the downstairs neighbors (Matteo and Alice) regarding babysitting. Every time either of us smacked into each other in the castle’s courtyard — one or both parties in a hurry — they said we’ll call you, we promise. So I figured the caller was Matteo. “Pronto,” I said, which literally means “ready” but also kind of means “hello.”

A man’s voice in English — but not Matteo. Curiosity mingled with the Prosecco in my cocktail as I absorbed the words “tomorrow” and “photo shoot.” Eventually I put due and due together and realized I was speaking with Laura’s husband — Laura from the hairdresser. Her company was desperate for someone to help wash dishes between photo shoots in Ravenna tomorrow, starting around 8:30 a.m. It was an all day gig and did I want to work?

Visions of Italian underwear models swam in my brain like espresso bean moscas (flies) in the top of a glass of Sambuca. Then he said the photo shoot was of a famous vegan Italian chef… well, that was cool, too. I told him I needed to change some plans and mull it over, hung up, put my phone on the table, looked at Lisa and said, “Holy sh*t!” The Universe, once again, came through like last night’s full, brilliant moon over Piazza del Popolo. Even though Lisa and I had plans the next day for a stupendous bike ride, it seemed too good an opportunity to decline.

So the next morning, Laura picked me up and off we went to the photo shoot/filming session. On the drive, the details unfurled like a sheet about to be dried on the line in dryer-less Italia: Laura, with her business partner Carlo, owns a communication and marketing company called Cambiamente in Faenza. One of their projects is a thick, elegant magazine in both Italian and English (referred to as their book-azine) called Ossigeno, (or Oxygen) which focuses on healthy recipes, fitness and general health. They pair their content with classy photos and art, hence our journey to Ravenna.

Passing vineyards and canals, we touched upon my journalism background and my general passion for words. Honestly, I hoped for a chance to write something for Cambiamente — and the way the Universe and my lucky stars were pulling me along by my thrift store bike jersey, was anything too much to hope for?

We pulled up to a sleek kitchen in what seemed like an industrial zone somewhere in Ravenna. I met a tired Carlo outside (he and Laura were up entirely too late hobnobbing).

“This is Sylva,” Laura said, as I shook Carlo’s hand. “She’s a journalist, too.”

Laura and I went on a coffee mission and when we returned, met the rest of the crew: film maker Lucca, Cambiamente’s editor Fabiola, vegan chef Daniela Cicioni, Matteo, assisting a famous photographer who — like Voldemort — shall not be named. But — very unlike Voldemort — this photographer was kind, interesting, funny and made snapping incredible photographs look easier than it would be if he had actually borrowed Harry Potter’s wand.

I found myself generally assisting Daniela; strangely, we started as two souls on the same boat holding different paddles — hers Italian and mine English, both of us learning to use the other. But I quickly re-learned pass me a knife please (passami un coltello, per favore) or a spoon (un cucchiaio) or a small bowl (una piccola ciotola) and things went smoother than one of the purees Daniela crafted. At some point, we switched paddles and she started asking me in English; I answered in Italian.

Somehow, thirteen hours disappeared among dirty dishes and photo and video shoots to the whir of Daniela’s 750 euro blender. It transported me back to one of my past lives as a college journalist/editor, interviewing bands and random politicians. Sure, these folks — the musicians, this photographer and chef — are famous and ridiculously successful, but also just plain human. I enjoyed the ample down time with everyone spent drinking way too much coffee, fiddling on phones, eating piadina con rucola, squacquerone e proscuitto for lunch and watching music videos in order to answer the world’s most important question: who was hotter, Beyonce or her sister Solange?

Assisting Daniela was a pleasure — she was like a kind, quiet tornado, a petite person with an incredibly measured, precisely beautiful approach to vegan cooking. I quickly ascertained this was the perfect job: when we weren’t filming or shooting and I wasn’t washing dishes, we were sampling vegan delights. First, leftover hazelnut tortes sprinkled with thyme and vegan chocolate muffins from a previous day…

Then everything that left the table after the famous photographer was done with it… among other things sauteed leeks, pureed purple sweet potatoes with ginger, tempeh with almond milk merengue, velvety pureed butternut squash alive with spices, edible flowers, and the nuts, fruit and vegetables strewn about everywhere as props…

That evening, after extensive cleaning and rearranging, we packed Laura’s car with our stuff — and our spoils. I walked away with fruit, enough nuts to sink a ferry, vegetables, Daniela’s homemade tofu and tempeh, edible flowers and a mint plant.

Then, with tired feet and an even more tired Laura, we all piled into her small car to drop Daniela and Matteo off at their hotel (in the morning, they’d return to their respective homes — Daniela to Lake Como and Matteo to Verona). I thanked Daniela (in Italian) for the chance to help and said it was a pleasure to meet her. During the rare moments when she wasn’t chopping, blending or preparing, she asked me about myself and where I was from; I told her I’ve lived in Colorado the last eleven years. She said, “Don’t you miss your home?” To which I responded I don’t have one at the moment — only a storage unit. Although I do miss friends and family sometimes. Outside the car in Ravenna, she told me (also in Italian) that I was interesting, nice and efficient which was a perfect mirror of my experience with her.

Against the backdrop of a blazing orange and pink sunset, Laura and I chatted all the way home — in English, despite her constant protests (in English) that her English isn’t that great 🙂 I went to bed exhausted but once again pleased after following the Universe’s breadcrumbs yet again, like a modern day Gretel sans Hansel…

Two days ago, as Lisa and I fell out the door on our way to a couple hours of work at the Farm, my phone rang again. I was wrestling with my bike jersey,  one shoe on, unable to find said phone, of course. It was Laura — and not, as I assumed, asking when I’d like to come get paid (although she did that too) but explaining something far more interesting. She’d made a proposition to Carlo regarding an article about an exercise called Feldenkrais for the next edition of Ossigeno. Could I send some writing samples over?

Yesterday I popped into Cambiamente to retrieve my euros for the photo shoot — and to meet with Laura and Carlo about the potential article. When I came into Carlo’s office, the PDF of my article for Backcountry Magazine was up on the computer. And then we were talking about word counts, due dates, payment and shaking hands — we had a deal!

Now it’s Saturday, June 10 (four days after I originally would have flown home) and I officially have a freelance writing gig in Italy. I think it’s certainly a small hop and not a leap to say the message right now is stay. Stay and see what happens, who it happens with and how. Each day is its own little mystery and I happily take on the roll of detective.

However, this detective needs to go on a bike ride, in order to come back refreshed, with weirder tan lines, ready to embark on a more cerebral journey involving the gentler art of Feldenkrais…

On the next edition, we’ll return to the enchanting waters of Venice (and/or the Story of Staying) — unless the Universe sends me another case to crack!

  Something’s Cooking… Once upon a time, there was a girl who needed a haircut. That girl, as fate would have it, was me.

#aperetivo #art #Cambiamente #cooking #Daniela Cicioni #Exercise #Faenza #Feldenkrais #film shoot #freelance writer #freelancing #fruit and vegetables #Hansel and Gretal #healthy living #Italian #Italy #journalism #journalist #language #learning #life #mint #nuts #Oxigeno #Palio #photo shoot #photography #pronto #Ravenna #Shetland Pony