#this is old (like 2020 old) but i figured it was worth uploading | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

antiporn-activist · 3 years

Text

The Children of Pornhub

Why does Canada allow this company to profit off videos of exploitation and assault?

By Nicholas Kristof, Opinion Columnist, Dec. 4, 2020, New York Times

This article contains descriptions of sexual assault. It’s also really long.

Pornhub prides itself on being the cheery, winking face of naughty, the website that buys a billboard in Times Square and provides snow plows to clear Boston streets. It donates to organizations fighting for racial equality and offers steamy content free to get people through Covid-19 shutdowns.

Yet there’s another side of the company: Its site is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags. A search for “girls under18” (no space) or “14yo” leads in each case to more than 100,000 videos. Most aren’t of children being assaulted, but too many are.

After a 15-year-old girl went missing in Florida, her mother found her on Pornhub — in 58 sex videos. Sexual assaults on a 14-year-old California girl were posted on Pornhub and were reported to the authorities not by the company but by a classmate who saw the videos. In each case, offenders were arrested for the assaults, but Pornhub escaped responsibility for sharing the videos and profiting from them.

Pornhub is like YouTube in that it allows members of the public to post their own videos. A great majority of the 6.8 million new videos posted on the site each year probably involve consenting adults, but many depict child abuse and nonconsensual violence. Because it’s impossible to be sure whether a youth in a video is 14 or 18, neither Pornhub nor anyone else has a clear idea of how much content is illegal.

Unlike YouTube, Pornhub allows these videos to be downloaded directly from its website. So even if a rape video is removed at the request of the authorities, it may already be too late: The video lives on as it is shared with others or uploaded again and again.

“Pornhub became my trafficker,” a woman named Cali told me. She says she was adopted in the United States from China and then trafficked by her adoptive family and forced to appear in pornographic videos beginning when she was 9. Some videos of her being abused ended up on Pornhub and regularly reappear there, she said.

“I’m still getting sold, even though I’m five years out of that life,” Cali said. Now 23, she is studying in a university and hoping to become a lawyer — but those old videos hang over her.

“I may never be able to get away from this,” she said. “I may be 40 with eight kids, and people are still masturbating to my photos.”

“You type ‘Young Asian’ and you can probably find me,” she added.

Actually, maybe not. Pornhub recently was offering 26,000 videos in response to that search. That doesn’t count videos that show up under “related searches” that Pornhub suggests, including “young tiny teen,” “extra small petite teen,” “tiny Asian teen” or just “young girl.” Nor does it necessarily count videos on a Pornhub channel called “exploited teen Asia.”

I came across many videos on Pornhub that were recordings of assaults on unconscious women and girls. The rapists would open the eyelids of the victims and touch their eyeballs to show that they were nonresponsive.

Pornhub profited this fall from a video of a naked woman being tortured by a gang of men in China. It is monetizing video compilations with titles like “Screaming Teen,” “Degraded Teen” and “Extreme Choking.” Look at a choking video and it may suggest also searching for “She Can’t Breathe.”

It should be possible to be sex positive and Pornhub negative.

Pornhub declined to make executives available on the record, but it provided a statement. “Pornhub is unequivocally committed to combating child sexual abuse material, and has instituted a comprehensive, industry-leading trust and safety policy to identify and eradicate illegal material from our community,” it said. Pornhub added that any assertion that the company allows child videos on the site “is irresponsible and flagrantly untrue.”

II.

At 14, Serena K. Fleites was an A student in Bakersfield, Calif., who had never made out with a boy. But in the eighth grade she developed a crush on a boy a year older, and he asked her to take a naked video of herself. She sent it to him, and this changed her life.

He asked for another, then another; she was nervous but flattered. “That’s when I started getting strange looks in school,” she remembered. He had shared the videos with other boys, and someone posted them on Pornhub.

Fleites’s world imploded. It’s tough enough to be 14 without having your classmates entertain themselves by looking at you naked, and then mocking you as a slut. “People were texting me, if I didn’t send them a video, they were going to send them to my mom,” she said.

The boy was suspended, but Fleites began skipping class because she couldn’t bear the shame. Her mother persuaded Pornhub to remove the videos, and Fleites switched schools. But rumors reached the new school, and soon the videos were uploaded again to Pornhub and other websites.

Fleites quarreled with her mother and began cutting herself. Then one day she went to the medicine cabinet and took every antidepressant pill she could find.

Three days later, she woke up in the hospital, frustrated to be still alive. Next she hanged herself in the bathroom; her little sister found her, and medics revived her.

As Fleites spiraled downward, a friend introduced her to meth and opioids, and she became addicted to both. She dropped out of school and became homeless.

At 16, she advertised on Craigslist and began selling naked photos and videos of herself. It was a way to make a bit of money, and maybe also a way to punish herself. She thought, “I’m not worth anything any more because everybody has already seen my body,” she told me.

Those videos also ended up on Pornhub. Fleites would ask that they be removed. They usually would be, she says — but then would be uploaded again. One naked video of her at 14 had 400,000 views, she says, leaving her afraid to apply for fast-food jobs for fear that someone would recognize her.

So today Fleites, 19, off drugs for a year but unemployed and traumatized, is living in her car in Bakersfield, along with three dogs that have proved more loyal and loving than the human species. She dreams of becoming a vet technician but isn’t sure how to get there. “It’s kind of hard to go to school when you’re living in a car with dogs,” she said.

“I was dumb,” she acknowledged, noting that she had never imagined that the videos could be shared online. “It was one small thing that a teenager does, and it’s crazy how it turns into something so much bigger.

“A whole life can be changed because of one little mistake.”

III.

The problem goes far beyond one company. Indeed, a rival of Pornhub, XVideos, which arguably has even fewer scruples, may attract more visitors. Depictions of child abuse also appear on mainstream sites like Twitter, Reddit and Facebook. And Google supports the business models of companies that thrive on child molestation.

Google returns 920 million videos on a search for “young porn.” Top hits include a video of a naked “very young teen” engaging in sex acts on XVideo along with a video on Pornhub whose title is unprintable here.

I asked the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to compile the number of images, videos and other content related to child sexual exploitation reported to it each year. In 2015, it received reports of 6.5 million videos or other files; in 2017, 20.6 million; and in 2019, 69.2 million.

Facebook removed 12.4 million images related to child exploitation in a three-month period this year. Twitter closed 264,000 accounts in six months last year for engaging in sexual exploitation of children. By contrast, Pornhub notes that the Internet Watch Foundation, an England-based nonprofit that combats child sexual abuse imagery, reported only 118 instances of child sexual abuse imagery on its site over almost three years, seemingly a negligible figure. “Eliminating illegal content is an ongoing battle for every modern content platform, and we are committed to remaining at the forefront,” Pornhub said in its statement.

The Internet Watch Foundation couldn’t explain why its figure for Pornhub is so low. Perhaps it’s because people on Pornhub are inured to the material and unlikely to report it. But if you know what to look for, it’s possible to find hundreds of apparent child sexual abuse videos on Pornhub in 30 minutes. Pornhub has recently offered playlists with names including “less than 18,” “the best collection of young boys” and “under- - age.”

Congress and successive presidents have done almost nothing as this problem has grown. The tech world that made it possible has been mostly passive, in a defensive crouch. But pioneering reporting in 2019 by my Times colleagues has prodded Congress to begin debating competing strategies to address child exploitation.

Concerns about Pornhub are bubbling up. A petition to shut the site down has received 2.1 million signatures. Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, called on the Justice Department to investigate Pornhub. PayPal cut off services for the company, and credit card companies have been asked to do the same. An organization called Traffickinghub, led by an activist named Laila Mickelwait, documents abuses and calls for the site to be shut down. Twenty members of Canada’s Parliament have called on their government to crack down on Pornhub, which is effectively based in Montreal.

“They made money off my pain and suffering,” an 18-year-old woman named Taylor told me. A boyfriend secretly made a video of her performing a sex act when she was 14, and it ended up on Pornhub, the police confirmed. “I went to school the next day and everybody was looking at their phones and me as I walked down the hall,” she added, weeping as she spoke. “They were laughing.”

Taylor said she has twice attempted suicide because of the humiliation and trauma. Like others quoted here, she agreed to tell her story and help document it because she thought it might help other girls avoid suffering as she did.

IV.

Pornhub is owned by Mindgeek, a private pornography conglomerate with more than 100 websites, production companies and brands. Its sites include Redtube, Youporn, XTube, SpankWire, ExtremeTube, Men.com, My Dirty Hobby, Thumbzilla, PornMD, Brazzers and GayTube. There are other major players in porn outside the Mindgeek umbrella, most notably XHamster and XVideos, but Mindgeek is a porn titan. If it operated in another industry, the Justice Department could be discussing an antitrust case against it.

Pornhub and Mindgeek also stand out because of their influence. One study this year by a digital marketing company concluded that Pornhub was the technology company with the third greatest-impact on society in the 21st century, after Facebook and Google but ahead of Microsoft, Apple and Amazon.

Nominally based in Luxembourg for tax reasons, Mindgeek is a private company run from Montreal. It does not disclose who owns it, but it is led by Feras Antoon and David Tassillo, both Canadians, who declined to be interviewed.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada calls himself a feminist and has been proud of his government’s efforts to empower women worldwide. So a question for Trudeau and all Canadians: Why does Canada host a company that inflicts rape videos on the world?

Mindgeek’s moderators are charged with filtering out videos of children, but its business model profits from sex videos starring young people.

“The goal for a content moderator is to let as much content as possible go through,” a former Mindgeek employee told me. He said he believed that the top executives weren’t evil but were focused above all on maximizing revenue.

While Pornhub would not tell me how many moderators it employs, I interviewed one who said that there are about 80 worldwide who work on Mindgeek sites (by comparison, Facebook told me it has 15,000 moderators). With 1.36 million new hours of video uploaded a year to Pornhub, that means that each moderator would have to review hundreds of hours of content each week.

The moderators fast forward through videos, but it’s often difficult to assess whether a person is 14 or 18, or whether torture is real or fake. Most of the underage content involves teenagers, the moderator I spoke with said, but some comes from spy cams in toilets or changing rooms and shows children only 8 to 12.

“The job in itself is soul-destroying,” the moderator said.

Pornhub appears to be increasingly alarmed about civil or criminal liability. Lawyers are circling, and nine women sued the company in federal court after spy cam videos surfaced on Pornhub. The videos were shot in a locker room at Limestone College in South Carolina and showed women showering and changing clothes.

Executives of Pornhub appear in the past to have assumed that they enjoyed immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects internet platforms on which members of the public post content. But in 2018 Congress limited Section 230 so that it may not be enough to shield the company, leading Mindgeek to behave better.

It has doubled the number of moderators in the last couple of years, the moderator told me, and this year Pornhub began voluntarily reporting illegal material to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. After previously dragging its feet in removing videos of children and nonconsensual content, Pornhub now is responding more rapidly.

It has also compiled a list of banned content. I obtained a copy of this list, and it purports to bar videos with terms or themes like “rape,” “preteen,” “pedophilia” and “bestiality” (it helpfully clarifies that this “includes eels, fish, octopus, insects”). Diapers are OK “if no scatophilia.” Mutilation depends on context but “cannot depict severing parts of the body.”

So while it is now no longer possible to search on Pornhub in English using terms like “underage” or “rape,” the company hasn’t tried hard to eliminate such videos. A member called “13yoboyteen” is allowed to post videos. A search for “r*pe,” turns up 1,901 videos. “Girl with braces” turns up 1,913 videos and suggests also trying “exxxtra small teens.” A search for “13yo” generates 155,000 videos. To be clear, most aren’t of 13-year-olds, but the fact that they’re promoted with that language seems to reflect an effort to attract pedophiles.

Moreover, some videos seem at odds with the list of banned content. “Runaway Girl Gets Ultimatum, Anal or the Streets” is the title of one Pornhub video. Another user posts videos documenting sex with teenage girls as they weep, protest and cry out in pain.

While Pornhub is becoming more careful about videos of potentially litigious Americans, it remains cavalier about overseas victims. One Indonesian video is titled “Junior High School Girl After Class” and shows what appears to be a young teenager having sex. A Chinese sex video, just taken down, was labeled: “Beautiful High School Girl Is Tricked by Classmates and Taken to the Top of a Building Where She Is Insulted and Raped.”

“They’re making money off the worst moment in my life, off my body,” a Colombian teenager who asked to be called Xela, a nickname, told me. Two American men paid her when she was 16 for a sexual encounter that they filmed and then posted on Pornhub. She was one of several Pornhub survivors who told me they had thought of or attempted suicide.

In the last few days as I was completing this article, two new videos of prepubescent girls being assaulted were posted, along with a sex video of a 15-year-old girl who was suicidal after it went online. I don’t see how good-faith moderators could approve any of these videos.

“It’s always going to be online,” Nicole, a British woman who has had naked videos of herself posted and reposted on Pornhub, told me. “That’s my big fear of having kids, them seeing this.”

That’s a recurring theme among survivors: An assault eventually ends, but Pornhub renders the suffering interminable.

Naked videos of Nicole at 15 were posted on Pornhub. Now 19, she has been trying for two years to get them removed.

“Why do videos of me from when I was 15 years old and blackmailed, which is child porn, continuously [get] uploaded?” Nicole protested plaintively to Pornhub last year, in a message. “You really need a better system. … I tried to kill myself multiple times after finding myself reuploaded on your website.”

Nicole’s lawyer, Dani Pinter, says there are still at least three naked videos of Nicole at age 15 or 16 on Pornhub that they are trying to get removed.

“It’s never going to end,” Nicole said. “They’re getting so much money from our trauma.”

Pornhub has introduced software that supposedly can “fingerprint” rape videos and prevent them from being uploaded again. But Vice showed how this technology is easily circumvented on Pornhub.

One Pornhub scandal involved the Girls Do Porn production company, which recruited young women for clothed modeling gigs and then pushed them to perform in sex videos, claiming that the videos would be sold only as DVDs in other countries and would never go online. Reassured that no one would ever know, some of the women agreed — and then were shattered when the footage was aggressively marketed on Pornhub.

Girls Do Porn was prosecuted for sex trafficking and shut down. But those videos continue to surface and resurface on Pornhub; last time I checked, videos of six victims of Girls Do Porn were on Pornhub, which continues to profit from them.

One of the Girls Do Porn women I saw on Pornhub is now dead. She was murdered at 20, allegedly by an angry ex-boyfriend who is about to go on trial. I’m not disclosing her name because she should be remembered as a vibrant college athlete, and not for a sex video that represented her most mortifying moment.

VI.

So what’s the solution?

I had expected the survivors to want to shut down Pornhub and send its executives to prison. Some did, but others were more nuanced. Lydia, now 20, was trafficked as a child and had many rape videos posted on the site. “My stomach hurts all the time” from the tension, she told me, but she doesn’t want to come across as hostile to porn itself.

“I don’t want people to hear ‘No porn!’” Lydia told me. “It’s more like, ‘Stop hurting kids.’”

Susan Padron told me that she had assumed that pornography was consensual, until a boyfriend filmed her in a sex act when she was 15 and posted it on Pornhub. She has struggled since and believes that only people who have confirmed their identities should be allowed to post videos.

Jessica Shumway, who was trafficked and had a customer post a sex video on Pornhub, agrees: “They need to figure out who’s underage in the videos and that there’s consent from everybody in it.”

I asked Leo, 18, who had videos of himself posted on Pornhub when he was 14, what he suggested.

“That’s tough,” he said. “My solution would be to leave porn to professional production companies,” because they require proof of age and consent.

Right now, those companies can’t compete with mostly free sites like Pornhub and XVideos.

“Pornhub has already destroyed the business model for pay sites,” said Stoya, an adult film actress and writer. She, too, thinks all platforms — from YouTube to Pornhub — should require proof of consent to upload videos of private individuals.

Columnists are supposed to offer answers, but I struggle with solutions. If Pornhub curated videos more rigorously, the most offensive material might just move to the dark web or to websites in less regulated countries. Yet at least they would then not be normalized on a mainstream site.

More pressure and less impunity would help. We’re already seeing that limiting Section 230 immunity leads to better self-policing.

And call me a prude, but I don’t see why search engines, banks or credit card companies should bolster a company that monetizes sexual assaults on children or unconscious women. If PayPal can suspend cooperation with Pornhub, so can American Express, Mastercard and Visa.

I don’t see any neat solution. But aside from limiting immunity so that companies are incentivized to behave better, here are three steps that would help: 1.) Allow only verified users to post videos. 2.) Prohibit downloads. 3.) Increase moderation.

These measures wouldn’t kill porn or much bother consumers of it; YouTube thrives without downloads. Siri Dahl, a prominent porn star who does business with Pornhub, told me that my three proposals are “insanely reasonable.”

The world has often been oblivious to child sexual abuse, from the Catholic Church to the Boy Scouts. Too late, we prosecute individuals like Jeffrey Epstein or R. Kelly. But we should also stand up to corporations that systematically exploit children. With Pornhub, we have Jeffrey Epstein times 1,000.

#if you use pornhub you're complicit in this #sorry i don't make the rules

571 notes · View notes

hey-there-juliet · 3 years

Text

Imagine if Luke, Reggie and Alex had a vlog.

Like, if they were just normal, alive dudes in 2020 and had a ✨vlog✨

Imagine the chaos!

The prank wars!

The music videos!

The 3am challenges!

The everyday stupidity!

The behind the band scenes!

The exploring of abandoned/haunted places!

Just ✨imagine✨

the way I wish I could draw to make this happen

Reggie would've started it. Just playing around with a camera his parents bought him as an apology for being not-great parents (to say the least). At first, he's just filming himself, talking about puppies and hamsters and the best pizza place in the city, shredding on the banjo. Then he starts recording their writing sessions, the band rehearsing, and random videos of them busking and doing random shit; all the while uploading the videos on youtube.

Then Luke starts getting in on it once he realizes Reggie actually had people enjoying his vlogs, that the band could grow from this, they could start an online following. So they start making challenge videos, eating terrible mixtures like eggs and peanut butter, and seranading random people on the streets. Alex hates being on camera at first, but he fights a smile everytime the camera is on him, and he's always there - most of the time the designated camera man - ready to offer sarcastic comments at any time Luke and Reggie do something stupid. He also offers to edif the videos, because Luke has no patience, and if it were up to Reggie, well, there would be a lot of effects and no cuts at all.

They'd been rehearsing in Alex's garage since Bobby had quit the band (and they had lost their rehearsing space), but Alex's garage was too cramped, and his parents weren't exactly thrilled about it, so the boys had been looking for a place to rehearse. And Luke saw an article on the newspaper announcing a studio space just fifteen minutes away from his place. So the boys are going to check it out, and Reggie is recording everything. They get to the house and are about to knock on the front door when Luke hears music. And he can't just resist music, so he goes around to the back, ignoring Alex's protests, and he can't help but stare in awe through the half open garage door as the girl inside shreds on the piano with a killer song, and an even better voice.

Julie is too distracted at first to notice them, but once the song ends and she's hugging the music sheets to her chest, Reggie loses his balance from where he was standing on his tip toes behind Alex. Reggie falls into Alex, who in turn pushes Luke and the three of them end up in a pile on the floor, being screamed at by Julie (girl's got pipes!)

Ray hears the screaming and rushes in. The boys stutter their way through an explanation and manage to convince the Molinas that they're not some creeps spying on her. Phew.

After that first meeting, and before Julie joins the band, Luke may or may not have gushed about her incredible voice on camera.

That was the birth of Julie and the Phantoms, and just like a proud parent, Reggie had it all on camera.

He also happens to have on camera the day Alex was ran over by a very cute skater. They'd been out to celebrate their new rehearsing studio by eating some good, old street dogs. Alex blue shirt was never the same after that hot dog got familiar with it. But hey, being ran over was the best thing that could've happened to Alex because, 1) he met Willie, obviously; 2) turns out the street dogs were beyond spoiled, and if Luke and Reggie hadn't thrown theirs away in sympathy, all three of them might've ended the celebration in the ER... or worse.

All's well that ends well, so the next day the three of them showed up at the Molina house to officially move their instruments in. It turns out that, at first, they'd have the space for themselves because it hadn't been used since Julie's mom passed away. But now that Julie was back into music, they would have to share.

Luke didn't mind all that much. Pretty soon, he and the boys were sneaking into Julie's high school to help get her back into the music program - and disappearing asap after the show because they didn't even go there - and from there, it was an easy decision to invite Julie into their band.

Julie's best friend Flynn had other ideas - they were joining Julie's band - but that was fine too. Even better, Flynn nominated herself as Julie and the Phantom's unofficial-official manager, and that meant taking care of all of the band's socials, including editing videos and figuring out a somewhat stable schedule as to when to post videos, and what would be posted when.

With the girls in the picture, prank wars became ruthless. And Julie's house turned out to be perfect for 3am challenges, not that her tía liked the idea of them 'inviting' the Midnignt Man or any other spirits in.

Pretty soon, they were making money with the YouTube channel; getting sponsors, and selling merch. Their fans kept on growing. Every gig they played could be found, at least partially, in their channel - courtesy of Flynn and Ray.

The fan response to their channel once the band started to get recognition was insane. There was nothing they loved more than being able to follow along with some of the day-to-day lives of their favorite band.

It wasn't all roses though.

Turns out, Bobby had stolen some of Luke's songs and presented them as his own to a record label that was more than willing to sign him up. Ray managed to convince their parents to help them fight for Luke's songs, and they all pitched in to get a lawyer on the case. Thankfully, some of Reggie's early videos clearly showed Luke reworking on his old songs to take out Bobby's part. It wasn't hard to prove the songs were Luke's, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief once it was all over.

The band had offers from managers and labels over the years, but it was a rule that school had to come first. So, they kept booking gigs and working on their vlogs because they knew they wouldn't be able to focus all that much into it once they started working 24/7 on their music.

It was true, there weren't many exploring videos or 3am challenges videos anymore, but signing with Destiny Records and going on tour after graduation still left plenty of room for prank wars videos and visiting new places. Not to mention the behind the scenes of the tour, and other fun activities such as skiing, skating, or bowling (watching at least one of them fall on their asses on camera was always worth it).

The band kept on growing, the relationships too. Julie and the Phantoms became a legend. And through all of it, their fans got a chance to sneak a peek at their favorite band every Friday afternoon (tell your friends).

The rest, as they say, is history.

#i was thinking something sort of like Sam and Colby's vlogs lmao #jatp imagine #jatp prompt #jatp prompts #julie and the phantoms #luke patterson #julie molina #reggie peters #alex mercer #flynn jatp #willie jatp #mine #jatp fic #sort of #i write #fanfics #jatp

40 notes · View notes

booksbabybooks · 3 years

Text

The Old Guard comic and killing what you love

I see so much excitement on here about the Old Guard comic coming out in April, that I kind of feel like a buzzkill bringing this up and I'm sure I'll get hate for this but: some of you at least are going to have to buy the damn thing.

Because we all know what's going to happen. Days after it comes out, the whole book will be scanned and online. Blogs will share the whole thing page by page. You'll know where you can download an illegal PDF. And most of this will be done from no more malicious reasons than love and enthusiasm. And in doing so, you pretty much guarantee that there won't be another comic after it.

There's a real culture online - especially on Tumblr - of feeling that all creative products should be free, and that by making them freely available you are doing an uncritical good, and sticking it to the system while you are at it.

Some of this comes from reasons it's hard not to have sympathy with: a screw you to the system, a 'fuck it, Disney can afford it', or genuine poverty / lack of access to a legal version of it.

Less attractively - not to be your salty aunt here, but it's true - it stems from an entitlement, a belief that you should be able to consume any art you want, free, immediately and without ads. (And often with no sense of irony or awareness: the same people who will RAGE against people liking but not reblogging fan art are happy to share a link where you can download books for free.)

But artists need to eat. They need to pay rent. And in almost every creative industry, the vast majority of people do not earn enough to live off. I don't have the exact figures to hand (you can get them from the BPI / Society of Authors websites if you are intetested) but something like 90% of musicians earned less than £200 from streaming last year. A similar percentage of authors earned less than £1000. This likely includes some of your favourites. Some people you view as successful. Some people that, if you took a moment, you'd be heartbroken were harmed by your actions.

(I work in the creative industries and I can tell you: they don't make many people rich. I have friends who are best-selling authors who survive on teaching gigs. And while it is about the money, it's not just about the money: I've seen comics artists deeply upset because a day after a book landed someone has uploaded the last five pages onto their blog as a "tribute".)

So pirating isn't a victimless crime, however easy it is it to pretend otherwise. (Also, it's not without risk: 'but I love them, your honour,' isn't actually a viable legal defence for copyright infringement).

But it also sends a message to the companies (including those who, yes, probably do deserve to be robbed) that IT'S NOT WORTH PUBLISHING THIS ART.

No publisher ever thought, it got a load of hype even though sales tanked, so let's publish another one. No film studio thought, ticket sales suck but illegal downloads were high so it's a win.

And it's especially important if the art you want to consume challenges the existing narrative of what sells. The companies that create these things - that pay the artists and writers and filmmakers - will continue to believe that nobody wants a queer superhero / Black romantic lead / disabled central character until the bottom line proves otherwise.

(Not to also point out that if you don't believe creatives should be paid, you encourage a system where only rich people get to make art, or at least get to decide who makes art).

So: if you possibly can, buy the damn book.

Club together with your mates to buy it.

If you can, double what your money does by buying from a comics store or indie bookshop.

If you are broke, order it from your library - most libraries stock graphic novels now and also offer digital lending. Remember, authors get paid for every loan out.

I'm sure there are some people for whom these are impossible options - this being Tumblr, I'm sure many people are already frothing to tell me how privileged my viewpoint is. And it's not like I don't know comics are expensive, or that not everyone has a local library.

But a lot of you do. So it's to those people I'm saying:

You want more of these books to come out? You have to support them.

EDIT: While I am here saying pay for your art I would remind people that my 2020 Kindness project is giving away my stitches to good homes for free so if anyone wants these Joe and Nicky stitches they are still available. HMU. (UK only due to postage, sorry)

#the old guard #joe x nicky #nicky x joe #graphic novels #graphic novel #artists need to eat #it's all fun and games until somebody loses a publishing contract #pay your artists

52 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

Text

Strength in numbers

Accountancy is more likely to be mocked than celebrated (or condemned), but accountants, far more than poets, are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

Though "bean counters" are employed by firms, they are notionally bound by a professional code of ethics every bit as serious as the Hippocratic Oath: "count things honestly." Without an accurate accounting of quantities, you can't make good decisions on quality.

Though accountancy concerns itself with counting things, it is inextricably bound up with the realm of ideas, and accounting conventions (how you account for things) are philosophical matters, not empirical ones.

It's no coincidence that Modern Monetary Theory owes more to accountancy than it does to economics. Economic accounts of the economy have an unfortunate tendency to proceed from first principles, creating models based on pure reason, without checking in on the actual world.

For example, neoclassical econ's "homo economicus," the rational value-maximizing actor who populated so many models; or economists' insistence on targeting inflation with interest rates; or treating national "debts" like they were household debts.

It's telling that the greatest economics revolution of my lifetime was "behavioral economics," which could also be called "checking to see whether real people act like we've assumed they acted."

If it seems weird that economists would spend generations operating on the incorrect assumption that people behave in a certain way without ever checking, consider that Aristotle assumed women had fewer teeth than men, - and never bothered to count.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/aristotles-error/

Accountants check, and what they find is…gnarly. In "An Accounting Model of the UK Exchequer," Andrew Berkeley, Richard Tye & Neil Wilson offer a mindbending account (heh) of where money comes from (hint: not taxes), and where it goes ("poof").

https://gimms.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/An-Accounting-Model-of-the-UK-Exchequer-Google-Docs.pdf

The authors did a two-part MMT Podcast interview describing the paper's findings, and it is the most extraordinary 2.5h audio you're likely to find: not just the realities of money, but the deliberate obfuscation thereof.

https://pileusmmt.libsyn.com/84-andrew-berkeley-richard-tye-neil-wilson-an-accounting-model-of-the-uk-exchequer-part-1

https://pileusmmt.libsyn.com/86-andrew-berkeley-richard-tye-neil-wilson-an-accounting-model-of-the-uk-exchequer-part-2

One thing the Exchequer paper reveals is that accountants bat for both teams: team clarity and team obscurity. As many finance scandals and finance dramas have reminded us, accounting can be turned to obscuring and dazzling rather than revelation.

After all, somewhere in HM Exchequer is a team of accountants who know *exactly* how money works - and know that it's nothing like the account produced by economists or politicians. They know it because they are in charge of it. They do money, all day long.

When accountants go rogue, things get bad. And thanks to neoclassical economics - and its emphasis on the "efficiency" of monopolies - we are living through a golden age of ghastly accounting fraud.

Just four companies - EY, KPMG, PWC and Deloitte - audit the books of 97% of the 350 largest UK companies; but they make far more selling these companies consulting services, and have made a habit of lying about those books in order to boost their consulting income.

Accountancy is meant to be a profession that understands that conflicts of interest are a moral hazard. But just as doctors convince themselves they won't get addicted to their own painkillers, accountants talk themselves into believing that conflicts won't corrupt them.

That's how the Big Four accounting companies came to sign off Carillion's fraudulent books. The company hid £7b worth of debts, took on management of vital government services up and down the country, then collapsed, leaving the nation stranded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carillion#Financial_difficulties

For the Big Four, Carillion's collapse was a feature, not a bug. After all, the only accounting firms large enough to oversee its bankruptcy were...the Big Four, who billed millions for cleaning up the mess left behind by their own fraud.

Accounting fraud is a fascinating potential fracture line in economic reform. After all, fraudulent accountants may help *some* plutes get rich - like, say Bernie Madoff, or Donald Trump - but they often do so at the expense of *other* plutes.

Like Exxon, which lied to its investors for 11 years about the value of its shale-gas holdings, which it purchased at the peak of the fracking bubble and whose revenues and liabilities it has buried in its financial statements ever since.

https://www.desmogblog.com/2021/02/02/whistleblower-sec-complaint-alleges-exxon-fraud-overvalue-fracking-assets

The company is finally writing down $19.3b worth of those assets, but the true figure is more like $50b. And yes, Exxon's big investors include a lot of passive funds that invest pension savings, meaning this hurts Main Street as well as Wall Street.

But as ever, those pension-savers are the Lucky Duckies here, because - joke's on us - Americans have basically no pension savings, thanks to the wage stagnation and asset inflation that left almost all working Americans facing penury in old age.

Hey, at least they're not getting ripped off by Exxon! The real victims of this decade-long, multibillion-dollar fraud are the same people who got snookered into buying into shitty Trump casinos and luxury buildings: rich people.

By definition, rich people deal in quantities that exceed their ability to personally count so they are especially vulnerable to scam accounting. It's only when the frauds tank a company we all suffer, as jobs and businesses disappear, screwing workers and cities.

The absence of a neutral ref and scorekeeper is a really big deal in online business and policy circles. The ad-tech duopoly isn't merely content to price-gouge advertisers - they also lie about what those sky-high prices are paying for:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/05/florida-man/#wannamakers-ghost

But each member of the duopoly has a different scam. Google's frauds are complex, behind-the-scenes market manipulations, an abstruse, mathematical grift that leverages complexity and monopoly to fleece its customers.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3500919

Facebook is much more straightforward. It just lies. Back in 2016, FB lied about how many people were watching videos, and encouraged hundreds of media company to beggar themselves to chase fraudulent video dollars:

https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-lawsuit-pivot-to-video-mistake/

Accounting fraud is in Facebook's DNA. After all, this is a company whose primary sales-pitch is, "We will count everything you do and then charge people to help them sell you stuff."

This proposition is intrinsically hard to evaluate. How can a customer know if their FB ad generated a sale, or whether it was an ad elsewhere, or random chance, or even that elusive beast, customer loyalty?

The main source for the belief in Facebook's efficacy is...Facebook. It's not a neutral party, and the accountants who sign off on its books have repeatedly shown themselves to be untrustworthy.

Here's the latest scandal: since 2018, FB's been defending a class-action suit brought by its customers who claim that FB lied about "potential reach" - that is, how many users would see their ads.

https://www.ft.com/content/c144b3e0-a502-440b-8565-53a4ce5470a5

And while FB strenuously denies that the inaccuracies in "potential reach" metrics were just normal, unpredictable variations in user behaviors, a whistleblowing FB product manager has produced emails in which they warn execs that they're committing fraud.

The execs who got these memos rejected them, telling the product manager that acting on them would have "significant revenue impact" - that is, "Our customers wouldn't buy our products if we were truthful about them."

The fraudulent reach figures begat fraudulent revenues, and those revenues were fraudulently reported to investors. Those investors will now take a haircut if FB loses in court.

Accounting fraud's pathology is bimodal: it abets the wage-theft and austerity that harms the poorest and most vulnerable - but also the reporting scams that harpoon finance's biggest whales.

It's a curious alliance of interests. For now, it seems like Big Tech is going to be antitrust and anti-corruption's harbinger, but I wouldn't count accountancy out - it's got exactly the right kinds of enemies to fire sustained political will.

#pluralistic

33 notes · View notes

heartsandmuses · 4 years

Text

tiktok famous

for @stonyweek 2020 // prompt: “social media”

steve rogers/tony stark. rated g. 1.8k. universe: mcu.

Two months after the rest of the team gets TikTok, Steve finally caves and makes an account of his own.

He doesn’t tell anyone though, because while his grasp on technology is better than what most would assume, part of the fun is letting people think he’s completely helpless. It’s made for some pretty amusing afternoons, between Clint trying to teach him for an hour straight exactly how to empty the recycle bin on his laptop and Bruce attempting to talk him through uploading a photo onto his Google Drive, and Steve figures that the team’s exasperation at his supposed tech incompetency might make for a few good videos.

And it does — his popularity soars seemingly overnight, and it’s only a matter of days before people start to catch on to the fact that Captain America’s making TikToks now and barely a week before he’s amassed hundreds of thousands of followers.

Unfortunately, that means the team’s caught on too.

It’s a bit of a disappointment that he can’t continue to be—as Clint would say—a troll, now that they know he’s not as much of an old man as previously thought, but there’s still plenty else he can do on the app. In the week after his account gets verified, Steve isn’t sure how many videos he gets dragged into, but between all the dance covers Natasha teaches him, all the easy food hacks Bruce does, and all the workouts Thor records, he’s certain that he’s made an appearance in well over a hundred drafts for the other Avengers’ profiles.

Not that he minds all that much. It gives him a chance to explore the full scope of TikTok in a way he probably wouldn’t on his own.

— — —

It’s Peter who introduces Steve to the concept of TikTok “challenges,” which, really, consist of anything ranging from simple choreography to lighthearted pranks, and Steve takes it upon himself to scroll through the kid’s profile for some fresh ideas.

It’s a slow weekend anyway, no missions planned or battles to fight, and the renovations in the gym thanks to Hulk’s latest tantrum means that all team training sessions are cancelled until next week. Outside, rain patters against the windows of the common room; the TV’s on low, playing a rerun of some competitive cooking show that Tony, sprawled out on the other side of the couch, fell asleep in front of, having lost interest about halfway through. Steve smiles as he lets his gaze trace over Tony’s profile—his messy hair, the curve of his nose, the way his eyelashes fan over his cheeks—and when his eyes finally turn back towards his phone...

Steve blinks.

Because the next video he lands on is tagged #KissYourBestFriendChallenge. And if he happened to miss the tiny print at the bottom of the screen, a text bubble pops up in the first few seconds with exactly the same words.

The video starts off innocently enough, with Peter and Ned laughing and joking around in what Steve assumes is Peter’s bedroom, both of them sitting on the floor with a half-finished Lego Death Star between them. Steve has the volume turned on low, but he can still hear Ned’s breathy Vader impression, as he holds up one of the figurines and walks it along the carpet. Peter laughs, and when his gaze shifts from the Lego figurine back up to Ned’s face, bright and beaming, his grin softens at the edges, expression turning into something much more... wistful and wanting and affectionate.

Something smitten.

Ned’s gaze meets Peter’s once again, and he trails off in the middle of his sentence when he sees him leaning in, closer and closer until their lips finally meet. It’s a tender kiss, a hesitant one, but Ned pulls away after a moment, partly in surprise and partly to search Peter’s face, a look of— of astonishment, of realization, coming over his own. And just like that, he leans back in and kisses him silly, smiling against Peter’s mouth.

Steve’s heart clenches, his eyes drifting back down to the bottom of the screen, and right next to the extensive list of hashtags, the caption reads: he feels the same way, followed by a row of heart emojis.

He’s known for a while that Peter’s been going out with Ned, but Steve had no idea that this is how they got together, and as he thinks about that look of mutual longing that they’d shared, he can’t help but glance back over at Tony, still blissfully asleep and snoring soundly.

— — —

Steve can’t get the idea out of his head.

It might have something to do with the fact that he’s spent the past few days going through the hashtag, watching as people have their dreams come true or—equally as often—dashed. But Steve’s a strategist, he needs to consider all possible outcomes before he can start to even plan, and while there’s a very large, very scared part of him that wants to call the whole thing off before it can even really begin, he knows, deep in his gut, that no better opportunity would ever present itself to tell Tony how he feels.

Steve’s brave, but he’s not the kind of brave that can go up to his best friend directly and confess his love to him. He’s learned that lesson all too well from silently pining around Bucky for the better part of a decade, and Steve knows he won’t be able to go through the same thing again. Even if Tony does reject him—which is a possibility he’s certainly preparing himself for—at least he’ll know for sure that he doesn’t have a chance, instead of being stuck in the familiar limbo of wondering and wanting and hoping.

And if that does happen, if Tony turns him down, Steve’s reassured by the fact that he can play it off as a joke, say it was all just for the challenge. That’s been his biggest concern in the past, whenever he would consider taking the leap and asking Tony out, the risk of something shattering between them. Their friendship, their closeness, what they have right now — none of it is worth throwing away just because Steve can’t tamp down his desire.

He’s thrown himself into some hastily thought-out plans in the past, but this one feels pretty foolproof.

— — —

Steve isn’t sure how it’s possible, really, but there’s just something about the sight of Tony laughing—crow’s feet crinkling at the corners of his eyes, lips curling into a grin—that makes him about ten times more handsome than he usually is. It’s just as heart-stopping as it is distracting, and it takes a good five minutes for Steve to even remember why he’d come down to the lab in the first place.

Officially, the excuse he gave Tony is that he needs some input on which TikTok to post next; unofficially, Steve’s just trying to calm his racing heart as he watches his best friend go through the entirety of his drafts folder, trying to muster up every ounce of courage he has, for one little moment. One little kiss.

“I think this one’s a real winner,” Tony says, turning the phone back towards Steve, and on the screen is a time-lapse of him sketching the Tower. He has a few others like that up on his profile already, quick little drawings of the common room or of the team, and Steve realizes with some embarrassment that if Tony went into his camera roll he would find more than a few real-time recordings of Steve sketching full pages of those warm, brown eyes and those long, fanning eyelashes. “The pranks and storytimes are fun and all, but I like the videos of your art the best.”

There’s such a startling sincerity in his words that it makes Steve’s heart skip a beat. He feels warm and nervous all at once, stomach churning and palms sweating, and he gets so lost in the adoring look in Tony’s eyes that he doesn’t notice for a long moment how close they really are. And it doesn’t stop, either. They just keep getting closer and closer and—

Steve’s leaning in, he realizes. He’s leaning in and he can see Tony’s tongue dart out to wet his lips, can see Tony’s gaze dropping to Steve’s mouth, can see a flicker of want in his eyes, pure and desperate, and that’s all Steve needs to know before he kisses him.

For days all he could imagine were the countless ways that Tony might let him down gently, pulling back with a laugh and a friendly squeeze to his shoulder, shaking his head and telling him that they’re better off as friends. But Tony doesn’t do any of that. He kisses back almost instantly, hands coming up to cup Steve’s cheeks, and Steve absolutely melts into the touch. It’s sweet and gentle and perfect, and now that he doesn’t have to worry about playing it off as a prank anymore, he pours everything he’s feeling into it — everything he’s been feeling, for all these years. All of his longing, his fondness, his desire.

All of his love.

The kiss seems to last somewhere between a second and an eternity, and when he finally pulls back to look into Tony’s eyes, he can see it all, every thought and feeling written out so clearly in his expression, a picture-perfect mirror of his own. Steve smiles, as a rush of relief fills his chest, and he can’t help but lean in again, just as his heart flutters and his stomach swoops and he thinks, with absolute certainty, he feels the same way.

— — —

JARVIS catches the entire exchange on video for him, along with the elated and impromptu make-out session that had ensued immediately afterwards, and while Steve plays back the footage of that initial kiss at least a hundred times, smiling stupidly at his phone, he doesn’t upload it.

It just feels too... intimate, too personal, for the rest of the world to see, at least right now. Steve just wants to keep the moment—and Tony—to himself for a little longer, and so, what he posts instead is the time-lapse of him drawing the large, looming Tower and the cityscape surrounding it.

— — —

Days later, he posts another sped-up sketch. This time, it’s one of Tony, with that big, gorgeous grin, that familiar twinkle in his eyes; it’s the exact expression that came over his face after Steve had kissed him, and it feels good, committing it not only to memory, but to paper as well.

But his followers aren’t completely clueless, he knows that, and it’s over the next few weeks—during which Steve gets a little more confident in uploading his drawings of Tony—that they begin to suspect something might be going on between the two of them.

Steve, of course, never outright confirms nor denies their claims, though he does, three months into their relationship, film that “walk into the room naked and record your boyfriend’s reaction” challenge, and that pretty much says it all.

#stony week 2020 #stonyweek #stony #steve rogers #tony stark #otp: put on the suit #ficlets #fics #my fics #my writing #mine #amy talks

113 notes · View notes

trendyclassicandvintage · 4 years

Text

A PASSION FOR HISTORIC FASHIONS: ANGELIQUE NOIRE

Angelique Noire: A Fashion Model who has Helped Evolutionize Pinup Imagery

In this week’s post, we are continuing our series that discusses historical fashion costumers, sewers, and enthusiasts. The subject of this week’s post is Angelique Noire, a model who has helped to contemporize pin-up girl imagery, as established by Noire at AngeliqueNoire.com. We spoke to Noire about her experiences, insights, and costume preferences. This week, we are once again getting a view inside historic fashion but through the context of present times.

To begin, Angelique Noire is actually the name of her “..persona...”, according to AngeliqueNoire.com. Prior to establishing this identity, Angelique built up a career that consisted of over a decade’s worth of experience in the fashion industry, according to AngeliqueNoire.com. She modeled for companies such as Bloomingdale’s, Betsey Johnson, Ralph Lauren, Badgley Mischka, Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, and more, as detailed within the same work. Her resume includes modeling for print media and fashion runways, as well as appearances on television, in music videos, commercials, and more, as detailed at AngeliqueNoire.com.

Image Courtesy of Angelique Noire (Instagram: @the_angelique_noire)

Photographer: Guillaume Bo (Her Husband)

Presently, her focus is on her work as “Angelique Noire,” which according to the “My Work” section of AngeliqueNoire.com, is a product of “Her combined passion for the Old Hollywood Glamour styles and observations of extreme under-representation of women of color in the media during the 1920s and 1950s…”. Her “Angelique Noire” identity is the focus of her Instagram. The page consists of her modeling pin-up style looks and fashions that bring to mind eras that she says she gravitates towards, as detailed within our interview, which range from “..the 1930s to the 1950s.”

For example, Angelique wears dresses in her Instagram posts that feature what Lydia Edwards describes as “...kick-flare panels…” in the work How to Read a Dress: A Guide to Changing Fashion from the 16th to the 20th Century (154-155). This construction detail can be observed in designs from the 1930s, as illustrated and exemplified within the same work (Edwards 154-155). Angelique’s “... peplum...” garments demonstrate the influence of “...The 1940s..., “ as gathered by information detailed by Elaine Stone and Sheryl A. Farman in the book The Dynamics of Fashion (12). Her looks frequently utilize tapered waists and voluminous skirts al la Christian Dior’s “‘...Corolle…’” portion, of the collection that would be infamously known as the “‘New Look,’” from 1947, as observed and detailed by Adélia Sabatini in the Dior Catwalk, and also noted by Angelique Noire in an Instagram post on February 1st, 2018 (24-27). Other looks feature more constrained and figure emphasizing skirts, described by Sara B. Marcketti and Phyllis G. Tortora, in Survey of Historic Costume, as “...pencil-slim skirts…” that according to the same source were also featured in the infamous ‘“New Look”’ debut (519). Some of her ensembles also possess “...pointed collars…," which, according to The Dynamics of Fashion, was a prominent feature of Jacques Fath's designs from “...The 1950s…” (15).

In addition to her Instagram account, which features images that could serve as inspiration for any fashion enthusiast’s Pinterest board, she also has a “How To” section on her website. One section for hair tutorials features videos embedded from her YouTube account that focus on how to create historic hairstyles with the innate tendencies of one’s hair, which Angelique states were non-existent “When…” she “...began…” her “...journey to creating 1940s/1950s hairstyles…”. Additionally, she also has sections devoted to providing tips for achieving “Vintage Inspired…” fashion and beauty looks.

youtube

“Easy To Do Hairstyle Inspired by Pinup Girls”

Source: Angelique Noire YouTube Channel

Image Courtesy of Angelique Noire (Instagram: @the_angelique_noire)

Angelique's participation in and contributions to the subject of pinup dressing, including her pioneering "...Natural Hair..." vintage hair-styling tutorials on AngeliqueNoire.com have contributed to a more inclusive view of historic costuming. Additionally, Angelique also demonstrates how one can create and explore a niche in any given market. Overall, Angelique has contributed to enhancing the relevance of historic fashions in present-day pursuits.

Q&A: Costume Designer Preferences, Insights, and Experiences:

Trendy, Classic, & Vintage: How and when did you become interested in costuming and fashion history?

Angelique Noire: Probably around 11 or 12 years old.

TCV: What is your favorite fashion era, and why?

AN: I adore the style from the 1930s to the 1950s.

TCV: Who is your favorite figure(s) in fashion history, and why?

AN: I have two favorites that inspire my choices...Grace Kelly and Lauren Bacall. They look at ease in their classic, feminine choices.

TCV: How long does it typically take for you to design, style, and/or sew a historical look?

AN: If I have items in my closet to accomplish a look I want to do, it just takes me about 15 minutes to put it together...a little more if I have to iron.

TCV: If you follow current fashions, what historical influences have you seen returning?

AN: I often see the 1950s style repeated.

TCV: If you could bring back one historical fashion, accessory item or trend, what would it be, and why?

AN: Carved Lucite Purses!!!! I have a pretty decent collection of Lucite purses but wish I had more in colors like pink, pastel green, pastel blue, and more. (See images of Noire’s collection provided below).

TCV: Where do you find your materials and/or garments to create your looks?

AN: I am approached by brands pretty often, so we work out terms for working together. As far as my Lucite purses, I often find them online.

Close-up of the handbag seen in the previous image.

Images Courtesy of Angelique Noire (Instagram: @the_angelique_noire)

---

Works Cited:

“Easy To Do Hairstyle Inspired by Pinup Girls.” YouTube, uploaded by Angelique Noire, 4 Apr. 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osF0JUxbb0c, Accessed 20 Aug. 2020.

Edwards, Lydia. How to Read a Dress: A Guide to Changing Fashion from the 16th to the 20th Century. Reprint ed., London and New York, Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.

Noire, Angelique. “How To - Achieve the Pinup Look from Head to Toe” Angelique Noire, n.d., http://angeliquenoire.com/how-to/ , Accessed 12 Aug. 2020.

Noire, Angelique. “How To - Pinup Hairstyles for Natural Hair.” Angelique Noire, n.d., http://angeliquenoire.com/hair-tutorials/, Accessed 12 Aug. 2020.

Noire, Angelique. “My Work: About Angelique Noire aka The Black Pinup.” Angelique Noire, n.d., http://angeliquenoire.com/my-work/, Accessed 12 Aug. 2020.

Noire, Angelique. “Historic Costume Interview.” Received by Brittany Kilpatrick, 24 June 2020, Email Interview.

Noire, Angelique. “The_angelique_noire.” Instagram, n.d., https://www.instagram.com/the_angelique_noire/, Accessed 12 Aug. 2020.

Noire, Angelique. “How To - Vintage Inspired Styling.” Angelique Noire, n.d., http://angeliquenoire.com/vintage-styling/, Accessed 12 Aug. 2020.

Noire, Angelique. (@the-angelique-noire). “January went by fast!...” Instagram, 1 February 2018, https://www.instagram.com/p/BeqIar3H8su/?igshid=1jdrc6775ee5u.

Stone, Elaine, and Sheryl A. Farnan. The Dynamics of Fashion. Reprint and 5th ed., New York and London: Fairchild Books, 2018.

Tortora, Phyllis G., and Sara B. Marcketti. Survey of Historic Costume. 6th ed., New York and London, Fairchild Books, 2015.

Sabatini, Adélia. Dior Catwalk. Yale University Press, 2017.

#fashion #pinupmodel #pinupfashion #historicfashions #angeliquenoire

38 notes · View notes

chasingthebizarrepodcast · 3 years

Text

Are Ghosts Possible? Maybe.

By H Flores

Sightings of ghosts has been an ancient and just as shocking phenomenon, that it has been recorded by whatever means people had available to them at the time. There are legends that have been passed through time, that are well known and then there are new stories told by people that experience something unexplainable to them. Usually, the person's credibility is limited to people that know them and people that are sure ghosts exists. Outside of that circle, there are hundreds of millions of skeptics waiting to question everything about the sighting and assuming that every sighting is a hoax.

Questioning things you're told is great! As the matter of fact, it's encouraged for everything else in life, not just when you talk about ghosts! However, just like a person can fall into the side of the spectrum where they believe anything without a doubt, people can also fall to the other side of the spectrum where you're too skeptical that all the explanations you come up with are just as easily impossible as the sighting is to you.

The first issue that everybody seems to have regarding ghosts is that there are hardly any pictures of ghosts or evidence that backs up a witness's story. Or is there? There's actually a handful of pictures and videos of ghosts out there. Are they blurry? Sometimes. Can they be hoaxes? Yes, of course. We have photo shop these days. You know what else we do have? CCTV. People also have ring cameras. People install cameras inside their homes for security reasons. People put security cameras and lights outside of their homes that are triggered by movement. We have pictures from smart phones too and more importantly, we have picture from big chain stores parking lots and in-store after hours where security guards have caught apparitions and activity from shopping carts moving by themselves to well-placed items falling off of shelves. There's more and more CCTV cameras in schools, churches, businesses, etc.. that have caught sounds and images. There's even videos and pictures taken from hunting cameras in the woods! There's ghost hunting TV shows and when a show is created for public viewing, you better believe that it will be edited to make it look more interesting. Outside of that, very few-- probably a handful of people since the 1920's-- have gotten any attention from creating hoax pictures to circulate in the media. As the matter of fact, there's way too many people who lose all their credibility, gain public ridicule, and have lost their jobs because they have reported a sighting. The more prestigious your occupation is, the more hesitant you are to come forward with your story of a ghost sighting or anything weird for that matter.

But let's focus more on the issue that there's more access to smart phone cameras and the pictures uploaded from apparition sightings are as blurry. Why would that be? Again, yes, it could still be a hoax or a failed attempt at photo shop-- we will always keep this in mind throughout this blog. However, when people get shocked and witness the unexpected they can get excited or shocked in most cases. You can try to take a picture of anything, but more than likely you'll have more blurry pictures than sharp, focused ones. Also, if you are witnessing an apparition, it's usually very random and completely unexpected. A handful of people have been lucky to have a camera at hand to take a picture of an apparition. If they think about drawing out their camera at the time they're looking at something shocking and unexpected, or something that their brain hasn't even had time to register yet because it's that weird, then they're probably going to try to take a picture as fast as they can before the sighting disappears. Sometimes, all you can really do is look at the weird thing you are looking at in awe.

If the scientists who are curious about what ghosts are could freely study this phenomenon to find out what it is, they probably wouldn't be able to create a reliable experiment where they can have the variables and controls, and it would be difficult finding a unit of measurement to conduct the experiment. What can be done is to rule out all other factors in a person who is experiencing hauntings to be ruled out. Some paranormal investigators who follow a scientific process try to rule out issues with the building, like checking for noisy or leaky pipes, and other factors. They try to rule out any problems surrounding the neighborhood, like leaked gas pipes, problems with the water supply, or any problems that could be affecting a family physically. There have been scientists, like electric engineers, who have been able to make their own measuring instruments that have helped them find a way to measure activity in a house hold. Nintendo Wii has been a great tool to be able to detect invisible anthropomorphic forms lingering in people's living quarters. These methods still don't take into account the unreliability of an appearance or activity by an apparition.

People that have tried explaining this phenomenon, is that ghosts are mostly energy. There are some articles (more of this on a future show) that propose that the brain is like a radio receiver (Radboud University Nijmegen, 2014). This leads to a fringe idea that consciousness is separate from the brain and that our brain is picking it up the way a radio picks up a signal (University of Surrey, 2020). While the articles that I retrieved these ideas from are questionable sources and the ideas might seem strange, we don't understand the brain enough to cross this out and as far as this opinion piece goes, there have not been any studies to dig further into this phenomenon on humans. However, knowing what we know about electricity, it has a hint of possibility (Davis, 2018). It would explain why some people could see apparitions and other people can't. If we look at other species, like birds for instance, we know that an organic brain is able to pick up magnetic fields to help them navigate (Roach, 20017). Some fish species are able to communicate via the release of chemicals or even light electrical discharges. This idea is not as esoteric as it sounds.

Overall, anything we conclude from ghost sightings is inconclusive because there are no real studies being conducted to understand this phenomenon. Can we attribute ghost sightings to mass hysteria? It could be. In most of the ghost sighting cases there's no stimulants to cause such behavior. The one recurring pattern of ghost activity are old buildings or old artifacts; places where people have died; recent renovations on an old building; people tampering with the occult; and a recent death of a family member. Usually people that are affected are people that live in those buildings or the people and relatives of the people that tampered with said occult activity. There's hardly any stories of a ghost haunting a neighborhood or an entire community.

Believing in ghosts is a subjective experience for now until proper studies can be made that make a concrete conclusion. Experiencing a ghost sighting or having enough unexplained phenomenon experiences is what usually changes a skeptical person's mind. There could be a lot of benefits from figuring out exactly what the ghost phenomenon is. Whether it's a psychological glitch that makes people sensitive and tuned to another reality; whether it's a physical issue that comes with the option of medication; whether we could learn something about what's out there on the other side-- Either way, it's worth exploring to see what we find in my opinion.

Sources:

Davis, Dunavin. (2018, Mar 12). Yale Scientists: Human Consciousness Seen As A Wave Of Electricity. WSHU Public Radio: NPR News and Classical Music. Retrieved October 3, 2021 from https://www.wshu.org/post/yale-scientists-human-consciousness-seen-wave-electricity#stream/0

Radboud University Nijmegen. (2014, January 22). Brain works like a radio receiver. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 3, 2021 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140122133713.htm

Roach, John. (2007, Sep 27). Birds Can "See Earth's Magnetic Field. National Geographic. Retrieved October 3, 2021 from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/birds-can-see-earths-magnetic-field

University of Surrey. (2020, October 20). Researcher Proposes New Theory of Consciousness. NeuroscienceNews.com. Retrieved October 3, 2021 from https://neurosciencenews.com/electromagnetic-consciousness-17191/https://www.wshu.org/post/yale-scientists-human-consciousness-seen-wave-electricity#stream/0

1 note · View note

elenaoftheturks · 3 years

Text

Dawn of a new Era(Takemura/Reader)

Chapter 3: One Dead – Two Alive

Your PoV:

It didn‘ t take long until you‘ ve reached the garage and – as expected – Misty was sitting in front of it.

She forced a smile as she saw you moving closer and sat beside her, waiting for her to start speaking without forcing her to say anything.

It just felt unreal that Jackie wouldn’t return anymore. He always joked around about being ‚bullet proof‘ and ‚nothing could harm him’ but now he was gone, leaving an empty hole in your heart and you could only imagine half of how Misty might feel.

„Jackie...He…“, Misty began, shaking her head a little as if to shake a thought out of her head before continuing „He always joked around about being bullet proof. You know we’ ve known each other since childhood but started dating one year ago, right? “.

You didn’t want to interrupt her so you responded with a light nod waiting for her to go on.

“Back then...He told me ‘ ____ told me to use those balls of mine and ask already, so... Yeah. Man, I’m not good at this…’ and that’ s how we made it official. I never actually thanked you, so… Thank you.. ”, her voice broke “ the one year we had with each other, even though I was worried sick sometimes, it was worth it. I will never forget it.”.

The tears fell before you realized it as you embraced Misty who immediately hugged back.

“Still a crybaby I see…. I...Can’t believe… I won’t ever see him again. ”,she sobbed into your shoulder.

“You’ re one to talk Misty…”, you teased and she giggled a little.

“I can imagine what he would say to this situation. ”

“Yeah me too..He would be misunderstanding it completely.”

The two of you looked at each other and said “THREESOME? COUNT ME IN!” while laughing.

Misty wiped the tears off her face “He would always say something to make us laugh. Thank you ___. I… I would like to stay here by myself for a little longer and figure out what to do from know on. Maybe laying the tarot will help. I hope you don’t mind? “

That was all you needed to hear as you stood up, stretched and wiped your face with your hand.

You must look like a complete mess right now but you didn’t care as you smiled at Misty.

“No, not at all. Take all the time you need. See you around?“

“Yeah, and thanks again.”, she smiled as you walked away.

Goro’s PoV:

On my research one certain Club appeared all the time.

The Afterlife.

A Shard I found told me a few details regarding the Club.

>>As the old saying goes "There is only one path in Night City worth walking: the one that leads to the Afterlife." Once you make it here, sooner or later, everything else opens up to you. The Afterlife is an iconic bar where the who's who of mercs and first-rate fixers gather to kick back or conduct biz. It's also a major nerve center for the city. This is the place where the biggest deals get cut and the job rewards have the most zeros tacked on. Stop here to spot big names such as Rogue, Dexter DeShawn, and that guy who "drank with Morgan Blackhand once.<<

“It sounds like a Club for thieves, terrorists and madmen to meet and plot their next scheme.”,I thought while unplugging the chip and stuffing it into my pocket.

“But it’s the best I have at this time. Until the thief wakes up, at least.”

The first obstacle was getting past the guard, but once I told him I want to talk to Rogue he let me pass. She must be curious what I have to offer.

The conversation ended pretty badly. She was asking for an obnoxious prize.

95000€$ just for a little bit of information. After I respectfully declined she spat at me to fuck off and had me removed by her bodyguard.

What a choosy, expansive and rude person.

I tried to brush a few wrinkles out of my men’s shirt and heard my stomach growl.

How long do I have to endure this?

I grew up on the streets with no regular meals, no clean clothes, dirt everywhere and this is exactly where I ended up again.

How pathetic.

As I made my way through this hellhole of a City I saw a familiar face walking around the corner.

Still dressed in a black long sleeved blouse, tied with a matching bow on the front, an army green skirt with black tights underneath and simple black military boots.

Her hair tied into a messy high ponytail with two longer strands at the front and side swept bangs. The only difference to before was her makeup. It was a complete mess. Even worse than the ponytail.

Her appearance is so out of place even in a city like this where everything is possible as most say.

I just couldn’t help but stare.

She doesn’t seem to belong here, just like me….

_______________________________________________

Sorry it’s kind of short. I’ll do better! i promise! ;_;°

For those interested:

Outfit reference (hope it works) :

https://owame.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/2018-Gothic-Dress-women-autumn-army-green-strap-dress-Women-Goth-Dress-A-Line-Fashion-vintage_9926d192-dab5-442c-8eba-459edf7ef756.jpg

Hair reference:

https://cdn.diys.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Messy-high-ponytail.png

#cyberpunk goro #takemura x reader #goro takemura #takemura goro #fanfic #sorry it's kind of short

19 notes · View notes

agentnico · 3 years

Text

Spree (2020) Review

Hot diggidy dayum, his film brought back “Gummy Bear”! You know that viral song on YouTube back in 2010s that was all the rave? That was so gangnam style before “Gangnam Style” was even a thing!... Damn I feel old!!

Plot: Thirsty for a following, Kurt Kunkle is a rideshare driver who has figured out a deadly plan to go viral.

With the modern generation spending half of their lives glued to the screens of their smartphones or other technology, and with so many people building careers through their IPs, making a horror or comedy film based around this could not feel anymore befitting or contemporary of our times. Recent examples include the 2014 horror flick Unfriended and 2018′s Searching. Now Spree takes it up a notch, by bringing in live streaming and taxi-hire-over-the-phone (like Uber) and blending them into a dark comedy where things really end up a bit bonkers to say the least. And boy, do things get crazy! Some of the events that occur are in fact so farfetched that you have to suspend your sense of disbelief. The main character commits some heinous crimes and murders, and manages to walk away scot-free during most of the film leaving no evidence even though he’s posting everything online.... it is unrealistic. In reality the police would have gotten their hands on him very quickly, however the movie at least attempts to explain this by bringing in the idea of fake news, and how these days with all the special effects and props at people’s disposal streamers can create the most craziest content to go viral, even though its fake. Still leaves the movie come-off as far-fetched, but I give the filmmakers props for trying to come up with a reason. Additionally, this is a black comedy after all, so it doesn’t have to be overly realistic.

Spree also is a very fast paced and snappy motion picture. Due to the constant intercutting sequences of the various viral and live streaming videos , it can at times be easy to get lost and miss certain details. Again though, one can analyse this as a reflection of real world social media posting, and how so many videos and viral streams are uploaded and shared in a matter of moments from so many different users, and we’re constantly getting drowned in endless content and more content and more more content, that’s it’s difficult to be able to keep up with it all said content. I feel like I’ve mentally embodied YouTuber TOMSKA (aka DarkSquidge) with the repetitive mentioning of ‘CONTENT’! Basically, what I’m saying is that the internet is crazy y’all! And yes, I used the term “y’all”! As I was saying though, the editing is really fast-paced and there is a lot thrown at the screen all the time. There’s even an active commentary section show with people reacting to what is going on, and it’s definitely worth trying to capture all the details, as even though this is a comedy, the movie’s also trying to say something about our real world and technology. Very Black Mirror-esque in that sense.

Joe Keery (of Stranger Things) definitely brings the enthusiasm and energy befit of a vlogger/streamer to the main character, and also seems like he watched The Office US when researching this role, as he has truly mastered the art of eyeing the camera Jim-style. Krasinski would be proud! And with the entire film playing out mostly as a live stream from Kurt’s phone, Joe Keery (of Stranger Things) is tasked with playing out a one-man show, as he’s always on centre stage, and luckily enough he does have the charm, the puppy dog eyes and the magnetic presence to keep the interest of the audience. Also, even though he is a psychopath and a serial killer, you inadvertently find yourself rooting for him at times, since many people that he murders are actually vile unpleasant self-absorbed beings. Literally the first guy he kills is a white supremist who thinks he is better and above everyone else, and as I was watching this guy I was thinking “damn I hate your guts” and then Joe Keery (of Stranger Things) goes and kills him. And you know what, I was satisfied. Don’t look at me like that, I’m not bloodthirsty or anything. I simply enjoyed seeing a man kill another man, now is that such a crime??

In the end, I think Spree is an enjoyable black horror comedy that doesn’t take itself too seriously, with a very game Joe Keery (of Stranger Things) carrying the piece with his loveable yet lunatic performance. The movie also joins the ranks of many others in observing the social commentary of modern obsession of internet following, and how ‘like’, ‘subscribe’ and ‘share’ has become such a pivotal point for many people’s existence. There’s plenty of comedy and enough sadistic violence for fans of Saw and American Psycho too, so if that’s your thing, well, then I guess this will be your thing.

Overall score: 6/10

12 notes · View notes

dustedmagazine · 3 years

Text

Dust Volume 6, Number 12

The Flat Five

It’s November, and the culture is telling us to be thankful again, at least from a distance. We’re a prickly, argumentative bunch here at Dusted, but I think we can all agree on gratitude for our health, each other and the music, good and bad, that comes flooding in from all sides. So while we may not agree on whether the best genre is free jazz or acid folk or vintage punk or the most virulent form of death metal, we do concur that the world would be very dull without any of it. And thus, seasonably overstuffed, but with music, we opine on a number of the best of them once again. Contributors this time include Bill Meyer, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Ray Garraty, Jennifer Kelly, Mason Jones, Patrick Masterson, Jonathan Shaw and Justin Cober-Lake. Happy thanksgiving.

Cristián Alvear / Burkhard Stangl — Pequeños Fragmentos De Una Música Discreta (Insub)

Pequeños fragmentos de una música discreta by CRISTIÁN ALVEAR & BURKHARD STANGL

The acoustic guitar creates instant common ground. Put together two people with guitars in their hands together, and they can potentially communicate without knowing a word of each other’s language. They might trade blues licks, verses of “Redemption Song,” or differently dire remembrances of “Hotel California,” but they’re bound to find some sort of common language. This album documents another chapter in the eternal search. Cristián Alvear is a Chilean classical guitarist who has found a niche interpreting modern, and often experimental repertoire. Burkhard Stangl is an Austrian who has spent time playing jazz with Franz Koglmann, covering Prince with Christoph Kurzmann and realizing compositions that use the language of free improvisation with Polwechsel. This CD collects eight “Small Fragments Of Discreet Music” which they improvised in the course of figuring out what they could play together. Given their backgrounds, dissonance is part of the shared language, but thanks to the instrumentation, nothing gets too loud. Sometimes they explore shared material, such as the gentle drizzle of harmonics on “No5.” Other times, they find productive contrasts, such as the blurry slide vs. palindromic melody on “No6.” And just once, they flip on the radio and wax melancholic while the static sputters. Sometimes small, shared moments are all you need.

Bill Meyer

Badge Époque Ensemble — Self Help (Telephone Explosion Records)

Self Help by Badge Époque Ensemble

Toronto collective Badge Époque Ensemble display the tastefully virtuosic skill of a particular strain of soul-inflected jazz-fusion that politely nudged its way into the charts during the 1970s. Led by Max Turnbull (the erstwhile Slim Twig) on Fender Rhodes, clavinet and synthesizers with members of US Girls, Andy Shauf’s live band and a roster of guest vocalists, Badge Époque Ensemble faithfully resurrect the sophisticated sounds of Blue Nun fuelled fondue parties and stoned summer afternoons by the pool. Meg Remy and Dorothea Paas share vocals on “Sing A Silent Gospel” which is garlanded with Karen Ng’s alto saxophone and an airy solo from guitarist Chris Bezant; it’s a track that threatens to take off but never quite does. The strength of James Baley’s voice lifts the light as air psych-funk of “Unity (It’s Up To You)” and Jennifer Castle does the same for “Just Space For Light” during which Alia O’Brien makes the case for jazz flute — Mann rather than Dolphy — with an impressive solo. The most interesting track here is the 11 minute “Birds Fly Through Ancient Ruins” a broodingly introspective piece which allows Bezant, Ng and bassist Giosuè Rosati to shine. Self-Help is immaculately played and has some very good moments but can’t quite get loose enough to convince.

Andrew Forell

Better Person — Something to Lose (Arbutus)

Something to Lose by Better Person

Like any musical genre, synth-pop can go desperately awry in the wrong hands. The resurgence of all things 1980s has been such a prevalent musical trend in recent years that it takes a deft touch to create something that taps into the retro vibe without coming across as smug. Under his Better Person moniker, Berlin-based Polish artist Adam Byczyowski manages to summon the melancholy vibe of 1980s classics such as “Last Christmas” by Wham!, “Take My Breath Away” by Berlin, and “Drive” by The Cars, reimagined for the 21st century and set in a run-down karaoke bar. This succinct and elegant half-hour set pivots around atmospheric instrumental “Glendale Evening” and features three Polish-language tracks — “Na Zawsze” (“Forever”), “Dotknij Mnie” (“Touch Me”), and “Ostatni Raz” (“Last Time”) — that emphasize the feel of cruising solo through another country and tuning into a unfamiliar radio station. There’s roto-toms, glassy synth tones, suitably melodramatic song titles (including “Hearts on Fire,” “True Love,” and “Bring Me To Tears”), plus Byczyowski’s disaffected croon. It all creates something unexpectedly moving.

Tim Clarke

Big Eyes Family — The Disappointed Chair (Sonido Polifonico)

The Disappointed Chair by Big Eyes Family

Sheffield’s Big Eyes Family (formerly The Big Eyes Family Players) released the rather fine Oh! on Home Assembly Music in 2016. Its eerie blend of folk and psych-pop brought to mind early Broadcast, circa Work and Non Work, before Trish Keenan and James Cargill started to explore more experimental timbres and themes of the occult. Bar perhaps the haunted music box instrumental “Witch Pricker’s Dream,” Oh!’s songs cleaved along a similar grain: minor keys, chiming arpeggiated guitar, spooky organ, in-the-pocket rhythm section, plus Heather Ditch’s vocal weaving around the music like smoke. The Disappointed Chair is much the same, enlivened with a touch more light and shade, from succinct waltz “(Sing Me Your) Saddest Song,” to the elegant Mellotron and tom-toms of “For Grace.” “From the Corner of My Eye” is stripped right back, with an especially affecting guitar line, plus Ditch’s vocals doubled, with the same words spoken and sung, like a voice of conscience nagging at the edge of the frame. It’s a strong set of songs, only let down by the boxy snare sound on “Blue Light,” and on “The Conjurer,” Ditch’s lower register isn’t nearly as strident as her upper range.

Tim Clarke

Bounaly — Music For WhatsApp 10 (Sahel Sounds)

Music from Saharan WhatsApp 10 by Bounaly

The tenth installment in Sahel Sounds’ Music For WhatsApp series introduces another name worth remembering. In case your attention hasn’t been solely faced on the ephemeral charms of contemporary Northwest African music in 2020, here’s the scoop: Each month, Sahel sounds uploads a brief recording that a musician from that corner of the world recorded on their cell phone and delivered via the titular app, which is the current mode of music transmission in that neck of the woods. At the end of the month they take it down, and that’s that. This edition was posted on November 11, so set your watch accordingly. Bounaly is originally from Niafounké, which was the home of the late, great Ali Farka Touré. Since civil war and outside intervention have rendered the city unsafe for musicians of any speed, he now works in Mali’s capital city, Bamako, but his music is rooted in the bluesy guitar style that Touré championed. Accompanied solely by a calabash player and surrounded by street sounds, Bounaly’s singing closely shadows his picking, which is expressive without resorting to the amped-up shredding of contemporary guitarists like Mdou Moctar.

Bill Meyer

Cash Click Boog — Voice of the Struggle (CMC-CMC)

youtube

Last year, Cash Click Boog made a few very noticeable appearances on other people albums (especially on Lonnie Bands’ “Shred 1.5” and Rockin Rolla’s First Quarter) but his own Extras was a minor effort. This Californian rapper was always a dilettante at music, but that was his main appeal and ineradicable feature: you always knew that he’s always caught up in some very dark street business, and he appears in a booth once every blue moon, almost by accident. He is that sort of a player who always on the bleachers, yet when they let him on the field he always does a triple double or a hat trick (depending on a kind of sport).

Voice of the Struggle was supposed to be his big break, the album in which he would expend his gift for rapping while remaining in strictly amateurish frame. Sadly, Boog has chosen another route, namely going pop. He discards his amateur garbs almost completely and auto-tunes every track. If earlier he was too dark even by street standards, now almost all the tracks could be safely played on a radio. The first eight songs are more or less pop-ish ballads about homies in prison, tough life and the ghetto. By the time we reach the last three tracks where Boog recovers his old persona, it’s already too late. The struggle remains but the voice is gone.

Ray Garraty

The Flat Five — Another World (Pravda)

youtube

The Flat Five musters a great deal of Chicago musical fire power. Alt.country chanteuse Kelly Hogan, Andrew Bird collaborator Nora O’Connor and Casey McDonough sing in Andrews Sisters harmonies, while NRBQ mainstay Scott Ligon minds the store and Green Mill regular Alex Hall keeps the rhythm steady. The sound is retro —1930s radio retro — but the songs, written by Ligon’s older brother Chris, upend mid-century American pieties with sharp, insurgent wit. A variety of old-time-y styles are referenced — big band jazz, country, doo wop and pre-modern pop — in clean, winking style. Countrified, “The Great State of Texas” seems, at first, to be a fairly sentimental goodbye-to-all-that song, until it ends with the revelation that the narrator is on death row. “Girl of Virginia,” unspools a series of intricate, Cole Porter-ish rhymes, while waltzing carelessly across the floor. The writing is sharp, the playing uniformly excellent and the vocals extra special, layered in buzzing harmonies and counterpoints. No matter how complicated the vocal arrangements, no one is ever flat in Flat Five.

Jennifer Kelly

Sam Gendel — DRM (Nonesuch)

youtube

Normally, Sam Gendel plays saxophone in a classic jazz style. You might have caught him blowing dreamy, airy accompaniments on Sam Amidon’s last record, for instance, or putting his own spin on jazz standards in the solo Satin Doll. But for this album, Gendel experimented with ancient high tech — an Electro Harmonix DRM32 drum machine, some synthesizers, a 60-year-old nylon-string guitar —t o create hallucinatory fragments of beat-box-y, jazz-y sound, pitched somewhere between arty hip hop and KOMPAKT-style experimental electronics. “Dollars,” for instance, laces melancholy, Latin-flavored guitar and crooning with vintage video-game blips and bleeps, like a bossa nova heard dimly in a gaming arcade. “SOTD” dances uneasily in a syncopated way, staccato guitar runs paced by hand-claps, stuttered a-verbal mouth sounds and bright melodic bursts of synthesizer. “Times Like This” poses the difficult question of exactly what time we’re in—it has the moody smoulder of old soul, the antic ping and pop of lush early 00s electronics, the disembodied alien suavity of pitch-shifted R&B right now. The ringer in the collection is a cover of L’il Nas’ “Old Town Road,” interpreted in soft Teutonic electro tones, like Cluster at the rodeo. It’s odd and lovely and hard to get a bead on, which is pretty much the verdict for DRM as a whole.

Jennifer Kelly

Kraig Grady — Monument of Diamonds (Another Timbre)

MONUMENT OF DIAMONDS by Kraig Grady

The painting adorning the sleeve of Monument of Diamonds is entitled Doppler Effect in Blue, and rarely has the cover art’s name so accurately described the sound of the music paired with it. The album-length composition, which is scored for brass, saxophones and organs, consists almost entirely of long tones that Doppler in slow motion, with one starting up just before another peters out. The composer, Kraig Grady, is an Australian-based American who used to release albums that purported to be the folk music of a mythical land called Anaphoria. Nowadays he has no need for such subterfuge, since this lovely album holds up quite well on its own merits. Inspired by Harry Partch and non-Western classical music systems, Grady uses invented instruments and strategically selected pitch intervals to create microtonal music that sounds subtly alien, but never harsh on the ears. As the sounds glide by, they instigate a state of relaxed alertness that’ll do your blood pressure some good without exposing you to unnecessary sweetener.

Bill Meyer

MJ Guider — Sour Cherry Bell (Kranky)

Sour Cherry Bell by MJ Guider

MJ Guider’s second full length is diaphanous and monolithic, its monster beats sheathed in transparent washes of hiss and roar. “The Steelyard” shakes the floor with its pummelling industrial rhythms, yet shrouds Guider’s spoken word chants with surprising delicacy. “Body Optics” growls and simmers in woozy synth-driven discontent, while the singer lofts dreamy melodic phrases over the roar. There’s heft in the low-end of these roiling songs, in the churn of bass-like synthetics, the stomp of computer driven percussion, yet a disembodied lightness in the vocals, which float in pristine purity over the roar. Late in the disc, Guider ventures a surprisingly unconfrontational bit of dream pop in “Perfect Interference,” sounding poised and controlled and rather lovely at the center of chiming, enveloping synthetic riffs. Yet the murk and roar makes her work even more captivating, a glimpse of the spiritual in the midst of very physical wreck and tumult.

Jennifer Kelly

Hisato Higuchi — キ、Que、消えん？ - Ki, Que, Kien? (Ghost Disc)

キ、Que、消えん？ - Ki, Que, Kien? by Hisato Higuchi

Since 2003, Tokyo-based guitarist Hisato Higuchi has quietly released a series of equally-quiet albums, many on his own Ghost Disc label, which is appropriately named. Higuchi's work on this and the previous two albums of his "Disappearing Trilogy" is a sort of shimmering, melancholy guitar-and-vocal atmosphere — downer psych-folk in a drifting haze. His lyrics are more imagery than story, touching on overflowing light, winter cities, the quiet world, and the transience of memories. As the guitar floats slowly into the distance, Higuchi's voice, imbued with reverb, is calmly narcotic, like someone quietly sympathizing with a friend's troubles. These songs, while melancholy, convey a peacefulness that's a welcome counterbalance to the chaotic year in which we've been living. Like a cool wind on a warm summer evening, you can close your eyes and let Higuchi's music improve your mood.

Mason Jones

Internazionale — Wide Sea Prancer (At the Blue Parade) (Janushoved)

Wide Sea Prancer (At The Blue Parade) by Internazionale

It’s been nearly half a decade since Copenhagen’s Janushoved first appeared in these annals, and in that time, a little more information — and a lot more material — has cropped up to lend some context to the mystery. The focus, however, steadfastly remains with the music — perhaps my favorite of which among the regular projects featured is label head Mikkel Valentin’s own swirling solo synth vehicle Internazionale. In addition to a reissue of 2017’s The Pale and the Colourful (originally out on Posh Isolation), November saw the release of all-new songs with Wide Sea Prancer (At the Blue Parade), 14 tracks of gently abrasive headphone ambient that carry out this type of sound very well. Occasionally there is a piano (“Callista”) or what sounds like vocals (“El Topo”), but as it’s been from the start, this is primarily about tones and moods. Notes for the release say it’s a “continuation and completion of the narrative set by the release Sillage of the Blue Summer,” but it’s less the narrative you should be worried about missing out on than the warmth of your insides after an uninterrupted listen.

Patrick Masterson

Iress — Flaw (Iress)

Flaw by Iress

Sweeping, epic post-metal from this LA four piece makes a place for melodic beauty amid the heaviness. Like Pelican and Red Sparrows, Iress blares a wall of overwhelming guitar sound. Together Michelle Malley and Alex Moreno roust up waves and walls of pummeling tone as in opener “Shame.” But Iress is also pretty good at pulling back and revealing the acoustic basis for these songs. “Hand Tremor” is downright tranquil, with wreathes of languid guitar strumming and Malley’s strong, gutsy soprano navigating the full dynamic range from whisper to scream. “Wolves” lumbers like a violent beast, even in its muscular surge, there’s a slow, anthemic chorus. Likewise, “Underneath” pounds and hammers (that’s Glenn Chu on drums), but leaves space for introspection and doubt. It’s rare that the vocals on music this heavy are so good or so female, but if you’ve liked Chelsea Wolfe’s recent forays into ritual metal, you should check out Iress as well.

Jennifer Kelly

Junta Cadre — Vietnam Forever (No Rent Records)

"Vietnam Forever" (NRR141) by Junta Cadre

Junta Cadre is one of several noise and power electronics projects created by Jackson Abdul-Salaam, musician and curator of the long-running Svn Okklt blog. As the project’s name implies, Junta Cadre has an agenda: the production of sound that seeks to thematize the ambiguities of 20th-century radical, revolutionary politics. The project’s initial releases investigated the Maoist revolution in China, and the subsequent Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s. Vietnam Forever shifts topics, to the American War in Vietnam, and tactics, including contributions from other prominent harsh noise acts and artists: the Rita, Samuel Torres of Terror Cell Unit, Leo Brucho of Controlled Opposition and others. Given those names, Vietnam Forever is as challenging and rigorous as you might expect. Waves of dissonant, electronic hum and fuzz accumulate and oscillate, crunching and chopping into textured aural assaults; wince-inducing warbles and needling feedback occasionally assert themselves. Abdul-Salaam’s harsh shout cuts in and out of the mix. The tape (also available as a name-yo’-price DL on Bandcamp) presents as two side-long slabs of sound, both over seventeen minutes long, both completely exhausting. At one point, on Side A, Abdul-Salaam repeatedly shouts, “Beautiful Vietnam forever!” It’s hard to say what he means. An affirmation that Vietnam survived the war? That its people and culture endure? Or that the U.S. can’t seem to shake the war’s haunting presence? Or even a more worryingly nihilistic delight in the war’s carnage, so frequently aestheticized in films like Apocalypse Now (1979), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Da Five Bloods (2020)? The noise provides no closure. Maybe necessarily so.

Jonathan Shaw

Bastien Keb — The Killing of Eugene Peeps (Gearbox)

youtube

The Killing of Eugene Peeps is a soundtrack to a movie that never was, a noir-ish flick which winds restlessly through urban landscapes and musical styles, from the orchestra tremors of its opening through the folky group-sing of “Lucky the Oldest Grave.” “Rabbit Hole” wafts by like an Elephant Six outtake, its woozy chorus lit by glockenspiel notes, while “God Bless Your Gutters” conjures jazzy desolation in piano and mordant spoken word. “All the Love in Your Heart” shimmers like a movie flashback, a mirage of blowsy back-up singing, guitar and muttered memories. “Street Clams” bristles with funk and swagger, an Ethio-jazz sortee through rain slicked streets. What’s it about? Musically or narratively? No idea. But it’s worth visiting these evocative soundscapes just for the atmosphere. It’s a film I’d like to see.

Jennifer Kelly

Jesse Kivel — Infinite Jess (New Feelings)

youtube

Nostalgia haunts the new solo album from Kisses guitarist/singer Jesse Kivel. Infinite Jess is full of that knowing melancholy of The Blue Nile, Prefab Sprout and The Pale Fountains that was so magnetic to a certain brand of sensitive young thing seeking to articulate their inchoate visions of a future steeped in romance and adventure. Think wistful mid-tempo songs wrapped in cocoons of strummed guitars, shuffling percussion and wurlitzer piano fashioned into a catalogue of adolescent radio memories. These tunes are topped by the understated sincerity of Kivel’s voice and lyrics which effectively evoke the place, time and emotion of his vignettes. The production suffers occasionally from a distracting reliance on too perfectly rendered tropes — overly polite drum programming, thumbed bass, blandly smooth electric piano — but the overall effect is oddly beguiling. Infinite Jess closes with a charmingly wobbly instrumental cover of Don McLean’s “Vincent” played on the wurlitzer that captures the poignancy of the melody and serves as a fitting epilog to the record.

Andrew Forell

Kyrios — Saturnal Chambers (Caligari Records)

Saturnal Chambers by KYRIOS

The corpsepaint-and-spiked-codpiece crowd are still making tons of records, but fewer and fewer of them are interesting or compelling. The retrograde theatrics and cheap pessimism can be irritating enough (I’d rather be reading Schopenhauer, thanks); it’s even more problematic when the songs can muster only the vividness and savor of stiff leftovers from the deep-freezer’s darkest and dankest corners. Still, every now and then a kvlty band that follows the frigid dictates of black metal’s orthodoxy creates a set of songs worth listening to. This new EP from Kyrios is super short, comprising three tracks in just under 10 minutes that pull off that neat trick: when it’s over, you want to hear more. Sure, the dudes in the band call themselves silly things like Satan’s Sword and Vornag, but the tunes are really good. Check out the churning strangeness of “The Utterance of Foul Truths.” Kyrios claims Immortal, Enslaved and Dissection as primary influences, and the band recognizes the stylistic debt they owe to Deathspell Omega (let’s hope Kyrios digs the twisted guitars and weird-ass time signatures, but passes on the National Socialism declaimed by that French band’s vocalist). Stuff gets even more engaging when bleeping and blooping keyboards vibrate at the edges of the mix, giving the songs a spaced-out vibe. “Saturnal Chambers”? Maybe Kyrios has met the astral spirit of Sun Ra somewhere along their galactic journeys into the heavenly void. He liked bleeping, blooping noises and gaudy costumes, too.

Jonathan Shaw

Matt Lajoie — Light Emerging (Trouble In Mind)

Light Emerging by Matt Lajoie

The second volume of Trouble In Mind Records’ Explorers series is, like its predecessor a cassette that comes concealed within a brown slipcase. Like many other discretely wrapped products, the fun is on the inside. This time, it’s a tape by guitarist who understands that toes aren’t just for tapping. At any rate, I think he’s managing his pedals with his feet. Most likely Lajoie has spent some quality time listening to mid-1990s Roy Montgomery. But since a quarter century has passed, he doesn’t just stack up the echoes. Sped-up tones streak across the surface of this music like swallows zooming close to that sheet you hung on the side of your barn the last time you had everyone over for a socially distanced gathering to watch Aguirre, The Wrath of God. Wait, did that really happen? Maybe not, but if someone were to make a fake documentary about the hanging of the projective surface, this music is suitably epic to provide the soundtrack.

Bill Meyer

Lisa/Liza — Shelter of a Song (Orindal)

Shelter of a Song by Lisa/Liza

Lisa/Liza makes a quietly harrowing sort of guitar folk, singing in a high, ghostly clear soprano against delicate traceries of picking. The artist, real name Liza Victoria, inhabits songs that are unadorned but still chilling. She sings with childlike sincerity in an ominous landscape of dark alleys and chilly autumnal vistas. She wrote this album while chronically ill, according to the notes, and you can hear the struggle against the body in the way her voice sometimes wavers, her breath comes in sudden intakes. But, as sometimes happens after long sickness, she sometimes strikes clear of the physical, achieving an unearthly purity as in “From this Shelter.” A touch of plain spoken magic lurks in this one, in the whispery vocals, the translucent curtains of guitar notes, though not much warmth. “Red Leaves” is earthier and more fluid, guitar flickers striking out from a resonant center, and the artist murmuring dreamily about the beauty of the world and its transience.

Jennifer Kelly

Keith Morris & The Crooked Numbers — American Reckoning (Mista Boo)

youtube

It's easy to imagine Keith Morris as perpetually frustrated. His last album, after all, took on psychopaths and sycophants, and the title of his new release American Reckoning doesn't suggest happy thoughts. There's plenty of bile on these five tracks, of course, but Morris approaches the album like a scholar. The opening verse describes the US as “Machiavellian: the mean just never ends” before referencing Othello and Yo-Yo Ma (the latter for a “yo mama” joke). If Morris and the Crooked Numbers just raged, they might be justified, but they'd be less interesting. Instead, they use a wide swath of American musical styles to thoughtfully consider racial (and racist) issues in our contemporary society. “Half Crow Jim” turns a Southern piano tune into a surprising tale about the fallout from slavery. It's a sharp moment, and it highlights that the only disappointing part of this release lies in its brevity. Morris has said he has more music on the way, and if he continues to mix styles, wordplay, and cultural analysis, it'll be worth a study.

Justin Cober-Lake

Tatsuya Nakatani and Rob McGill — Valley Movements (Weird Cry)

Valley Movements by Tatsuya Nakatani / Rob Magill

In most percussion ensembles, the gong-ist is a utility player, charged with banging out a note once or twice per composition for drama and ideally not screwing it up. Tatsuya Nakatani works on a wholly different level, transcending the possibilities of this ancient, archetypical instrument with vision and an unholy technique. More specifically, his set-up includes at least two standing gongs, each about as tall as he is himself. He plays them with mallets, standing between, in blur speed rolls that range all over the surface of the instrument. The sound he evokes is distinctly unpercussive, more resembling string instrument glissandos than any form of drums, a full-on high-register wail of sound that he sculpts and roils and coaxes into compositions of incredible force and complexity. He also plays a bunch of other percussion instruments, little drums and cymbals which he layers on top of each other so that when he strikes one, the others resonate. It is quite an experience to see him at it, and if you ever get a chance, you should go. Here, he works with the saxophonist Rob McGill unfurling a single 40-minute improvisation at a studio in the appealingly named Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. McGill is an agile player, laying alternately lyrical and agitated counterpoints onto Nakatani’s rhythms, carrying the tune and threading a logical through line through this extended set. He finds frequencies that complement Nakatani’s antic, nearly demonic drum sounds and knows when to let loose and when to let his partner through the mix. The result is a very high energy, engaging adventure in sound that evokes a rare response: you wish you could hear the drums better.

Jennifer Kelly

Overmono — The Cover Mix (Mixmag)

Mixmag · The Cover Mix: Overmono

It’s a really weird time to be advocating for club music of any kind, but Overmono’s Everything U Need EP out recently on XL again showcases what the fraternal duo known better as Tessela and Truss do best: melding thoughtful percussion patterns with these airy, gliding synth melodies that work at home just as well as in the club (theoretically, anyway). It’s not just original material they do well, though; whether it was the Dekmantel podcast a few years back or their live cassette from Japan or this mix for Mixmag, Ed and Tom Russell also have a knack for pacing in their sets. This one features stuff from the new EP as well as three unreleased tracks (not counting the Rosalía remix, which remains one of the year’s most addicting) and names both old and new — listen for DJ Crystl’s 1993 jungle jam “Deep Space” sidled up next to Smerz’s new skyscraper “I Don’t Talk About That Much.” If that sounds like everything you need, lock in and let Overmono do the hard work. Truly, they do not miss.

Patrick Masterson

Pole — Fading (Mute)

youtube

As Pole, Stefan Betke’s work has always been both comforting and disconcerting. The amiotic swells and heartbeat bass frequencies generate a warm human feel in his music despite their origins in serendipitously damaged equipment. Fading, his first album in five years explores Betke’s reactions to his mother’s dementia and reflects on the nature of personality, memory and soul. Building on his trademark glitchy beats and oceanic bass tones, the eight tracks echo a consciousness unmoored by the fog of unfamiliarity that smothers and distorts but never completely submerges awareness. “Tölpel” (slang for klutz) evokes impatient fingers tapping out the guilty resentment of the forgotten and the frustration of the forgetful. The title track closes with a woozy waltz punctuated by recurrent sparks. Fading is a deeply felt work; somber, reflective, stumbling towards understanding and acceptance, alive to the nuances and petty nettles of grief and above all beautiful in its ambivalence.

Andrew Forell

Quakers — II: The Next Wave (Stones Throw)

II - The Next Wave by Quakers

After eight years of silence following 2012’s self-titled debut, Stones Throw production trio Quakers (Portishead’s Geoff Barrow as Fuzzface, 7-Stu-7 and Katalyst) dropped the 50-track beat tape Supa K: Heavy Tremors out of nowhere in September and now, just two months later, are back with another 33-track behemoth that allows a litany of emcees to shine. Calling this The Next Wave is a bit of a stretch when you consider many of the voices on here are from guys who’ve been in the game for years or even decades (Jeru the Damaja, Detroit’s Phat Kat and Guilty Simpson, Chicagoan Jeremiah Jae, etc.), but even so, the dusty grooves and Dilla loops prove perfect foils for many of those who hit the mic. My favorite might be Sageinfinite slotting in with the organ grinder “A Myth,” but even if you don’t like it, everyone’s in and out quick. If you’re burned out on Griselda, give this a go for 1990s vibes of a different kind.

Patrick Masterson

Rival Consoles — Articulation (Erased Tapes)

youtube

There are deep pockets of silence in “Articulation,” ink black stops between the thump and clack of dance beat, sudden intervals of nothingness amidst limber synthetic melodies. London-based producer Ryan West, who records as Rival Consoles, layers sound on sound in some tracks, letting the foundations slip like tectonic plates on top of one another, but he is also very much aware of the power of quiet, whether dark or luminously light. Consider, for instance, his closer, “Sudden Awareness of Now,” whose buoyant melody skitters across factory-sized fan blasts of whooshing sound. The rhythm is light footed and agile, pieced together from staccato elements that hold the air and light. Like Jon Hopkins, West uses the glitch and twitch to insinuate the infinite, chiming overtones and hovering backdrops to represent a gnostic, communal state of existence. “Vibrations on a String” may jump to the steady thump, thump, thump of dance, but as its gleaming plasticine tones blow out into horn blast dissonance, the cut is more about becoming than being.

Jennifer Kelly

Sweeping Promises — Hunger for a Way Out (Feel It)

Hunger for a Way Out by Sweeping Promises

The title track bounds headlong on a rubbery bassline, picking up a Messthetick-y blare of junk shop keyboards. All the sudden, there’s Lira Mondal unleashing a giddy screed of angular pop punk tunefulness, her partner in Sweeping Promises, Caulfield, stabbing and stuttering on guitar. In some ways, this band is straight out of late 1980s London, jitter-flirting with offkilter hooks a la Delta Five or Girls at Our Best. In others, they are utterly modern, lacing austere pogo beats with lush, elaborate vocal counterpoints. “Falling Forward” is a continuous rush of clamped in guitar scramble and agile, bouncing bass, anthemic trills breaking for robotic chants; it’s a mesh of sounds that always seems ready to collapse in a heap, but instead finds its antic balance just in time.

Jennifer Kelly

Martin Taxt — First Room (SOFA)

First Room by Martin Taxt

Sometimes a room is more than a room. In the matter at hand, it is a space that proposes a state of mind and a consequent set of experiences. It is also the score for a piece of music that extrapolate that state into the realm of sound. The cover of First Room depicts a pattern of tatami mats that you might find in a Japanese tea room. Martin Taxt is a microtonal tubaist and also the holder of an advanced degree in music and architecture (next time someone tells you that some good thing can’t happen, remember that in Norway you can not only get such a degree; you can then go ahead and present a CD that shows your work. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in our society.). This music takes inspiration from the integrated aesthetic of the tea ceremony, using carefully placed and deliberately sustained sounds to create an environment in which subtle changes count for a lot. The album’s contents were created by mixing together two performances, one with and another without an audience. Taxt and accompanist Vilde Marghrete Aas layer long tones from a tuba, double bass, viola da gamba and sine waves. Their precise juxtapositions create a sense of focus, somewhat like a concentrated version of Ellen Fullman’s long string music, and if that statement means something to you, so will this music.

Bill Meyer

Ulaan Janthina — Ulaan Janthina II (Worstward)

Ulaan Janthina (Part II) by Ulaan Janthina

Part two of Steven R. Smith’s latest recording project echoes the first volume in several key aspects. It is a tape made in small numbers and packaged like a present from your favorite cottage industry; in this case, the custom-printed box comes with an old playing card, a hand-printed image of jellyfish, an old skeleton key and a nut. And Smith, who most often plays guitars and home-made stringed instruments, once more plays keyboards, which enable him to etch finer lines of melody. The chief difference between this tape and its predecessor is the melodies themselves, which have begun to attain the evocative simplicity of mid-1970s Cluster.

Bill Meyer

Various Artists — Joyous Sounds! (Chicago Research)

Joyous Sounds! by Various Artists

It’s been less than two years, but Blake Karlson’s Chicago Research imprint has already made its presence known both in the Windy City and beyond as fine purveyors of all things industrial, EBM, post-punk and experimental electronics. There were two compilations released within days of one another toward the beginning of October, and while Preliminaries of Silence veers more toward soothing ambient textures, Joyous Sounds! is more upbeat and rhythmic (Bravias Lattice’s “Liquid Vistas” is a beautiful exception). My favorite track is Club Music’s “Musclebound” (not a Spandau Ballet cover, as it turns out), but the underlying menace of Civic Center’s “Filigree” and Rottweiler’s pummeling “Ancient Baths” sit alongside merely unsettling fare like Lily the Fields’ “Porcelain” well. If you’re not already aboard or just have a Wax Trax-sized hole in your heart, you have a lot of work ahead of you with this label’s consistently superlative output.

Patrick Masterson

Kurt Vile — Speed, Sound, Lonely KV (Matador)

youtube

Given John Prine's passing from COVID-19 this year, the new Kurt Vile EP might be received as a tribute to the late artist, with extra significance coming from Prine's appearance here. Four years in the works, Speed, Sound, Lonely KV offers more than just tribute, though. Prine's guest spot (if you could call it that) on his own “How Lucky” certainly makes for a moving highlight, the two singers fitting together nicely as Prine's gruff tone balance's his partner's smoother voice. Vile also covers Prine on “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness,” and he adds “Gone Girl” by Cowboy Jack Clement as he takes further cosmic steps.

His two originals here complete the record, and, mixed in with the covers, draw out the lesson. Vile's entire EP blends the country influences with his more typical dreamy sound, the guitar work bridging the gap between a songwriter's backing and something more ethereal. Nashville, it seems, has always suited Vile just fine, and hearing him embrace that tradition more immediately adds an extra layer to his work. Putting a cowboy hat on his previous aesthetic puts him opens up new but related paths for him, and the five tracks here could play on either a Kris Kristofferson mix or a laid-back indie-rocker playlist. Either way, they'd be highlights on an endless loop.

Justin Cober-Lake

WhoMadeWho — Synchronicity (Kompakt)

youtube

Danish trio WhoMadeWho — drummer Tomas Barfod, guitarist Jeppe Kjellberg and bassist/singer Tomas Høffding — make enjoyable indie dance music that suffers somewhat from lack of personality and a tendency toward a middle ground. That may be due to an effort to accommodate a roster of Kompakt-related collaborators including Michael Mayer, Echonomist and Robag Wruhme. While there’s nothing bad and some pretty good here, the individual songs flit by, pausing briefly to set one’s head nodding and feet tapping, before evaporating from the mind. “Shadow of Doubt” featuring Hamburg’s Adana Twins has the kind of driving bass that anchored New Order hits but also, unfortunately, the unconvincing vocals only Bernard Sumner could get away with. More successful moments like the eerie piano riff and jazz inflections of “Dream Hoarding” with Frank Wiedemann, the arpeggiated house of “Der Abend birgt keine Ruh” featuring Perel and miserablist Pet Shop Boys inflected closer “If You Leave” do stick. Synchronicity might work well on the dance floor, but it doesn’t quite sustain at home.

Andrew Forell

1 note · View note

mainmuses · 4 years

Text

F2F Para Interaction: Discord Upload

Who: Rose McCoy & Dani Harper ( @daniharperdominant ) Where: Dani’s suite When: 13/10/20 Why: Rose escaped an uncomfortable interaction by climbing in Dani’s bathroom window, friendship ensues. What: Natural ending to the thread

Rose 13/10/2020

Rose & Dani: F2F @Rei || Dani & Marley

Rose walked with her book bag slung over one shoulder and absently sucking on a lollipop. It was a ball-gag cherry pop but she was enjoying it all the same, she hadn't been allowed one in so long. Rose caught a flash of red hair out the corner of her eye and tossed herself quickly and smoothly through the closest open window. It was a bathroom and she shoved the blind down after her, crouched and peeking through the crack to check if the coast is clear. Rose tensed all over when the door opened behind her and she didn't turn around, hoping maybe they would just go away?

dani harper

There were a lot of things that Dani expected at Devereux. Accidentally walking into a room where people were having sex, the occasional public scene, all of that. One thing she'd never experienced, in her entire first year and the few weeks of her second, was someone in her bathroom. In fact it took her a moment to be sure of what she was actually seeing. "Uh...are you lost, or do you just get off on sneaking into people's rooms?"

dani harper

That at least made some kind of sense, and Dani relaxed a little. "Oh - yeah, sure, but if you're going to hang out why don't you come into my room? Be a little more comfortable." She chuckled a little at the compliment, extending her hand as well. "Dani Harper, Dominant. It's a pleasure to meet you, Rose. Can I get you a drink or anything?"

rose mccoy-schuester

She turned slowly, grimacing. "I'm avoiding someone." Rose explained, figuring this person deserved some clue as to why she'd suddenly entered a poorly executed action movie. "Can I hang out for a sec?" She asked then paused "... Nice bathroom... very clean" Rose sat down out of her crouch and offered her hand "Rose McCoy, Switch."

rose mccoy-schuesterBOT13/10/2020

Rose smiled at the friendly interaction and shook hands enthusiastically. Ross's jaw twitched when she realised she was speaking to a Dominant and took her hand back, lowering her eyes in submission. "Sorry Miss, do you have a title you like used?" This was her first interaction outside the control of her ex with a Dominant peer. She wasn't fully sure how to act. "Do you have orange juice", she asked hopefully peaking up at Dani .

dani harper

"Miss is fine," Dani promised. "And please take a breath - I can just about see the tension vibrating off of you. This isn't a scene, you used a title, everything's okay. You can look at me, I won't turn you to stone or anything," she chuckled. "And yes, I've got some orange juice. Just grab a seat on the couch, and I'll be right there with it."

rose mccoy-schuester

Rose attempted to do as instructed and artificially lowered her shoulders in a show of attempting to relax. She glanced up at Dani a couple of times as if getting used to staring into the sun. "Thanks" she said and unfolded herself from the floor, instead taking up space on the couch. She was glad about the orange juice. " Are we pulp or no pulp people? It's an important personality test." Rose quickly got comfortable and took a decorative pillow to hug to her abdomen.

dani harper

"You're welcome," Dani smiled. As she headed for the fridge she looked back over her shoulder at her mysterious intruder. "We are definitely pulp people, so hopefully that passes the test." She'd never really cared much one way or the other, truthfully, but it was what she had in the fridge and so that's what they'd drink. Pouring each of them a small glass, she headed back to the couch to deliver one to Rose. Taking a seat at the other end of the couch, she raised her glass. "To new friends who sneak in through windows."14 October 2020

Amlee ~ Rose

Rose bobbed her head "Pulp is superior" she agreed "Thanks" she took the juice and raised it to the cheers "You say that as if you're supposed to make friends any other way" she smiled into her glass. "You are very chill about this which makes me wonder if this is a common occurance either for this college or for you personally". Rose took great care with the tassels on the decorative pillow "Where's this pillow from?"

dani harper

"Oh good. I'd have hated to fail my very first test," she laughed. "I mean usually I meet them when they haven't snuck into my room, but this works just as well." Dani shrugged. "I'm just fairly chill in general - this isn't the first time I've had strangers wander into wherever I lived. And that pillow...I think was a gift from someone whose couch I lived on for a while."

rose mccoy-schuester

"I would have forgiven you angway" she assured her brand new friend. "I actually think this is the superior way, it cuts down on the awkward small talk portion where you don't know if you should hang out. If someone is chill with surprise window guests then you know." She deduced. "I like it, it doesn't look like it's mass manufactured, someone made it. And that's pretty cool."15 October 2020

dani harper

"Well, I appreciate that," Dani chuckled. "It's nice to meet someone so forgiving of my stance on pulp." She had to admit that Rose did have a point, it was easier to get to know someone when you knew if you were comfortable with them sneaking in your window. "I suppose that's true, although in the future if you wanted you could just knock on my door." A smile tugged at her lips. "Yeah, she was super crafty. Did all kinds of things with her hands." Dani hesitated for a moment. "Want to talk about why you're hiding in my room?"16 October 2020

rose mccoy-schuester

Rose nodded her head and grinned "Noted, I suppose I can knock on a door" Rose looked down at the pillow and fiddled with it. "Is it... important?" She asked cautiously. Dani had asked, not demanded the truth from her.... yet. "What were you getting up to today? Am I getting in the way of plans?" She fretted. "Please go about your usual day, I'll climb back out the way I came in a minute." She assured the resident of the room.

dani harper

"It's worth a try, anyway. If I'm in I'll usually answer and let you in, and if not then my roomie can always let you into my room." There was nothing in it worth stealing except her guitar, so she didn't much care if Rose was in by herself. "It's not, no. I just thought I'd offer if you wanted to talk about it, but if not that's fine too." Dani smiled. "No plans. I was just going to sit and play a few songs while I gathered my thoughts."17 October 2020

rose mccoy-schuester

"Who is it you share with?" Rose asked, she knew very few people in this place so it wasn't likely that she knew them. "I promise to try the door next time but I make no promises that the door will be a habit, I'm quite fond of the window" She teased. Rose breezed straight through acknowledging what brought her through the window in the first place, and ignored the topic completely. It had been working for her so far. "Play songs? Do you play an instrument? What music do you like?"

dani harper

"Zoe Rose. She's gorgeous, so I'm sure you're going to notice if you see her." Dani wasn't being falsely modest comparing herself to the other Domme, because she really was beautiful. "Fair enough, just try not to use it when I'm...you know, actually in the bathroom." When Rose didn't stop to explain what had brought her there, Dani stopped pushing - she didn't need to know. "I do indeed - my guitar is in the bedroom. Indigo Girls, Imogen Heap, Sarah Mclachlan, things like that."

rose mccoy-schuester

"I'll look out for her." Rose agreed. "Yeah, that would be a bit awkward. We could install a doorbell? Or a smoke signal system? Do you know morse code?" Rose thought outloud, with no real intention on busting in on Dani in the bathroom but it was fun to imagine scenarios like she was a little girl and they were going to build a tin can telephone to communicate. "Amazing, I played the flute for a minute when I was 12 but then everyone realised that it was either I gave it up or everyone go deaf. It was an obvious choice." She laughed. "Can I hear you play?"

dani harper

Dani snorted. "Doorbell, maybe. Smoke in the bathroom's just set off my smoke detector. And I definitely don't know morse code." That wasn't completely true, she thought she remembered how to do SOS, but that wasn't really helpful and didn't even really count. "Ooh, nice - I love the flute but I never had any talent for it. It would have been kind of impressive if you deafened a whole town though," she laughed. "Yeah, of course - hang out, I'm just going to get my guitar from the bedroom."18 October 2020

rose mccoy-schuester

"I'll look into the doorbell idea." Rose promised "The flute is very hard." She agreed and watched Demi leave to grab the guitar. As a creative, Rose had always wanted to find an instrument that she could play and become good at. However, despite the lengthy practice she hadn't found herself improving enough to justify the effort.

dani harper

"I appreciate that. And it's much tougher than people give it credit for, that's for damn sure." She grabbed her guitar from where it was sitting in its case and brought it back out to the couch to sit on the arm. It was tuned, so she launched into something old but recognizable. "...but there ain't no way I'm ever going to love you, now don't be sad. Baby, don't be sad, 'cause two out of three ain't bad..."

#daniharperdominant #f2f #{ f2f }

1 note · View note

capfish8 · 4 years

Text

Leading 10 Finest Dublin Removals For 2020

Man With A Van Dublin

Content

Cost Of Moving Residence

Part Lots Removals.

I Required A Removal Company However My Relocate Is Truly Short Notice.

Elements That Influence Your Moving Prices.

Abouthouse Movers.

Rated 5 Out Of 5 Stars By Clients On Removal Evaluations

Top Removals

What'S The Ordinary Price To Hire Movers Far Away?

We Provide Cost Effective Removal Services In Dublin:

While it's an expense that many individuals would rather not bother with, it can be a life saver if unanticipated damages do occur. Depending upon the cover you need for the worth of your valuables, insurance policy can set you back anywhere from $200 to $1,000. We provide a series of services to improve business relocations and give more value for your organization. That being stated, moving in your own vehicle isn't a choice for most individuals.

How do you pack a messy house?

How to Move a Messy Room 1. 1) Organize your home before you pack up. Place your clothes and items into three piles: “Keep,” “Throw Away” and “Donate.” You don't need all that old junk dragging you down, so downsizing can be refreshing. 2. 2) Pack a separate “essentials” bag. 3. 3) Label your packing boxes. 4. 4) Try a moving app.

house removals dublin "/>

Is Mayflower moving expensive?

Mayflower is a full-service, long-distance moving company. Mayflower Moving Costs.Home TypeWeight of Household ItemsAvg. Cost 1,000-Mile Move3-Bedroom House7,500-10,000 lbs.$5,000-$7,5004-Bedroom House12,000-15,000 lbs.$8,000-$10,0005-Bedroom House17,000-20,000 lbs.$11,000-$15,0003 more rows•6 May 2020

It will certainly cost someplace in between $50 and $100 for a complete set of boxes, depending upon how many things you possess. HireaHelper is a marketplace where you can work with movers to aid you on a per hour basis. This is a fantastic alternative if you're just trying to find some added hands to load a rental truck or pack a moving container.

Cost Of Moving Home

You likewise need to think of buying things like bubble cover, sealing tape, mattress covers, and locks. You definitely don't desire your possessions damaging en route!

They were on time as well as with 2 shipment factors they paid attention and prepared their packing of the vehicle accordingly. Many thanks to David and Anthony who were the removal group on the day. The logistics of the relocation had some difficulties but the guys handled it exceptionally well. Moving overseas includes transferring your possessions to a port, having them loaded into a container, unpacking the container at the new area and carrying your valuables to your brand-new house. Therefore, you'll require to get quotes from global removalists to find out just how much it will certainly cost to move your belongings overseas.

Removalists will charge in 15 min increments, so you won't need to pay for a full hr if they take 15 mins or half an hour much longer to complete the job. When you market a residence, moving can be among those concealed prices of offering you fail to remember to think of. It depends on a variety of variables, however it's an expense you don't wish to forget to consider. Relying on your scenarios, moving can be extra pricey than you might picture. But for a 3-bedroom house, you would probably not expect to pay a lot less than $1400.

You can upload anything from a plant you want to transfer to your canine to an excavator. So if you were seeking somebody to deliver your bulldozer throughout the nation, you've located the ideal system in uShip. Obviously, you're most likely to move something like a furniture piece or some boxes. Cargo vans are the suitable alternative for those that desire a Do It Yourself relocation without requiring the room of a moving truck. Making it through traffic and also auto parking is significantly easier in a cargo van than in a moving vehicle.

You need to tip your moving companies $4-5 for every hr they aided you. So if your action just took 4 hrs and you were impressed with the solution, tipping $16-$ 20 to every mover is thought about a suitable total up to pointer.

While it holds true that they are earning money to assist you move, a tiny sum to reveal your admiration for their hard work will certainly make their day. A few of our clients have actually informed us that discovering a moderately valued residence with all the services you have in your current home, plus all the new space you desire in a community you enjoy can be a tricky proposition. Although picking to move or remodel is greater than simply an economic choice, the solution is clear -adding onto the existing home beats out moving from a bucks and also cents viewpoint. If you like your community, and also you don't already have the most significant or most pricey home on the block, you're better off monetarily if you redesign your house to suit your demands as well as stay.

How much do removals companies cost?

For local moves, removal companies charge an average of £50-£60 per hour for 2 men and a van with a 2-hour minimum charge. For long distance moves, removals charge a fixed price anywhere between £450 for a 1 bed flat and £1000 for a 4 bedroom house.

There's man with a van in moving in a vehicle that you're currently acquainted with. You need to locate a way to get your items to the terminal as well as from the arrival terminal. Like a moving truck, you will certainly be charged by mileage and you will certainly be called for to do every one of the training as well as filling on your own.

As you can see, preparing and also carrying out a step for a stone, brick, or block home is a huge offer that requires time, organization, and also money. Nonetheless, the benefits of moving a house, in our experience, constantly exceed the downsides.

Component Lots Removals.

The sector is fraught with dubious moving companies and scammers. If you have the means and aren't interested in doing any of the hefty training, moving companies are your best option. Full-service moving companies will deal with all the loading, driving, as well as discharging. They can even go as far as to pack your boxes for you, however the majority of people opt to do it themselves.

Our group shares a crave quality and also for completing a task right the first time. The average expense for a long-distance moving solution will run you around $4,000. This article is for the house owner with a coming close to move who intends to make certain that their moving team receives a proper idea for their solutions.

Nevertheless, if the action was an all the time venture, tipping a max of $40 each is an excellent general rule. Unless you received absolutely horrendous solution, it is constantly respectful to tip your movers.

One point that a great deal of people neglect to consider is the rate of transferring pets. If you do have area in your auto for your pets, this might not be an issue. Yet if you do not desire your pet cat shouting at you for numerous days, paying to deliver your family pets may be a far better option. Moving your family pets by auto or air will cost someplace in between $200 and also $400.

You can conserve cash by doing some work, but you require to set time apart to do them. Eventually this is for you and also your removalist to figure out. A fair price is not likely to be way too much less than the priced estimate cost, however. Usually removalists. are accountable for moving items from one location to an additional. They're not usually employed to clean up the place you're moving from, or arrange the area that you're moving to.

Penske, Budget Plan, and U-Haul all will certainly price match versus each other, so get quotes from all 3 even if you favor a specific company. The boys called the evening before asking if they might start a little bit earlier prior to the warmth of the day truly kicked in and recommended that they would call half an hour out.

If you are intending on packing on your own, you will require to get packing boxes. These can set you back anywhere from $4 to $17 depending on the dimension and also style of box you desire.

One of the major benefits of this sort of action besides saving cash, is you are moving your vehicle as well as your items. It's also a real advantage that the obligation is your very own.

youtube

I Required A Removal Company But My Move Is Actually Short Notification.

Simply provide us a call or contact us online today for more details-- our friendly group are always satisfied to help with any kind of query.

As previously stated, many moving companies have evaluation coverage that can be acquired at an added cost.

If you have homeowners insurance, your ownerships may be covered when they're in transit-- yet you need to check with your insurance coverage carrier.

Regardless of what your factor for moving, our extensive list of services will satisfy any of your removal requires.

This is a good strategy for those who don't have the moment to dedicate to the routine of packaging, or for those who have useful items that should be treated with specialist treatment.

Actually, employing moving companies is one option amongst several as well as probably the most expensive choice.

Just because you're moving, doesn't mean you need to work with a moving company to move your things.

So if you intend to save cash on your action, then take a look at these alternative means to move that can save you money and sometimes, could be the only means you can get your things from your old home to the new place.

This need to cover replacements for any kind of things that are harmed or shed while en route.

Usually you may need to pay a fair little bit extra, particularly if you're proposing than 50 kilometres away, and even interstate. The price will always depend upon the size of the work, the determination of the removalists to supply various rates, and also the variety of moving companies you'll be hiring. Yet a common cost is about $100 per hour for two removalists If you're hiring 3 removalists, expect to pay closer to $140 per hour. Generally, removalists will operate any place you are prepared to pay them to go.

Few people will want to pay the original price plus the cost of the improvements for your residence. It can be a battle to exercise interstate moving costs.

Don't seem like hiking half-way across the country with an automobile packed with valuables? This saves you from long, exhausting days embeded an auto, and will get you to your location a lot quicker. Depending on where you are moving to, it will cost anywhere in between $1,000 and $3,000 to fly a household of 4 interstate. This will certainly transform of course depending on the airline that you choose and if you are lucky adequate to score a deal when flights go on sale. Don't wish to risk having your treasured properties harmed during the relocation?

Factors That Influence Your Moving Costs.

You're likewise probably finest off working with someone else to make all the connections - such as gas, electricity, as well as web - at your brand-new location. Primarily, your choice will hinge on the dimension and quantity of the items that need moving. As well as if there's a fair bit that requires to be moved, there's a great chance it'll be worth it to pay someone else to do the task.

Abouthouse Movers.

How can I get free boxes from Walmart?

Go to the fruits and vegetables department and ask a store employee if there are any extra boxes in the back that you can have. Grocery store's especially, as well as places like Walmart, Target, Costco, Sam's Club, etc will all usually have a large supply of empty boxes folded up in the back from inventory shipments.

Take a look at our checklist of the best moving container companies and make use of the moving expense calculator to examine container prices. The most inexpensive container prices for delivering cross countries are usually going to originate from the companies with locations near you on both ends of your step. If a company is nearby in your area yet doesn't have an area nearby in the state you're relocating to, that will add a whole lot to your expense. Budget Alternatives 2020 Best Moving Containers & Storage space Companies We invested 260 hours researching moving container and also storage companies to discover the most effective prices, best customer service, and also fastest deliveries so you don't need to. For those that have more than just boxes, you have actually got a lot of choices when it concerns moving your furnishings as well as individual products.

Rated 5 Out Of 5 Stars By Customers On Removal Reviews

With these tips, you'll be much better geared up to make your plans and then enjoy your residence in its new, excellent location. Even in rural setups, communities and also neighborhoods have their own rules and also regulations about the sorts of structures allowed on buildings, as well as they typically rely on whole lot size and zoning. Before moving your residence, you have to make certain that you won't be breaking any kind of building codes or guidelines by moving it to a brand-new location.

Top Removals

How much does it cost to build a house in California?

Residential Construction Costs by StateStateAverage Cost RangeArizona$200,000 - $625,000California$200,600 - $600,000Colorado$300,000 - $500,000Connecticut$300,000 - $800,00020 more rows

You wish to make certain you have actually selected a reliable removalist that uses insurance policy and has a credibility for delivering on time as well as not harmful personal belongings. Removalists charge by the hour, yet also factor in the problem of the relocation. Prices can vary from $35 to $50 per hour each, yet other charges may use. Transfer prices, insurance and other expenses may not be included in the hourly prices, so be sure to request for the complete price of moving.

Do I get my mortgage deposit back?

Do you get your mortgage deposit back? If the purchase has gone through, then no (unless you want to borrow it and release some of the equity). This is obviously not possible for those with negative equity, but if you sell the property at a profit, you can recoup some of the capital you put down.

What'S The Average Cost To Work With Moving Companies Far Away?

A removalist company will certainly offer a range of services for you to choose from to make your action as easy as you want it to be. A removalist can load as well as unload all your valuables, established your new house for you, and some might even assist with the clean-up process of your old residence. Employing a professional moving company aids alleviate a lot of the stress and anxiety and discomfort related to moving. By choosing a removalist with economical prices, you guarantee your action goes as efficiently as possible-- without breaking the financial institution. When you get quotes, be sure they are itemised so you recognize what you're paying for.

If you have any inquiries or need a fast quote please offer Peter a phone call at. If he does not respond to, don't stress, he is probably filling or unloading a truck somewhere, simply leave a message and he will get back to you in no time at all.

Whether you're moving house or need business moving solutions, we can assist. Contact WridgWays currently to figure out your interstate moving costs. Although these are only price quotes, ideally this will certainly provide you a better suggestion of what your interstate moving prices will be. At any kind of point during the planning procedure, or during your relocation, you can speak to our moving experts to obtain the answers you require.

Yet numerous removalists will certainly not do jobs that need them to take a trip interstate, or multiple hours' range from where you'll live. For that sort of work, you'll probably need to employ a removalist that markets interstate or inter-regional services. Over the years we've honed our collective expertise and also skillset and also made innovation process adjustments that have elevated our company to the be one of the best companies in our field.

The price may be higher if you're relocating to a more remote area. If you're relocating to Darwin, for example, you could pay up to $5550 to relocate from Sydney, Melbourne, Perth or Brisbane. These costs are approximate and also will certainly rely on your place, the range you relocate, the solution you choose and also numerous other factors. Some removalists supply special solutions such as pianos and also various other big, delicate objects. Removalists provide a variety of solutions, yet give you the option of doing a few of the job on your own.

Obtain quotes from at least two of the companies to get an excellent idea of what it'll set you back. If you do not have furnishings to move, consider this budget plan alternative. Obtain the items you're moving to the bus incurable and also you're good to go. It's one of the most budget friendly option for a small move out of state. uShip is a marketplace platform especially for moving.

A lot of removalists bill by the hr and will quote you based on the sort of services you call for and the amount of items that require to be removed. The prices will certainly additionally differ based upon the day the removal occurs, i.e. Expert moving companies recognize how to pack the moving truck efficiently to guarantee marginal opportunity of damage during transportation. They likewise know exactly how to appropriately lift hefty products without causing injury. You're additionally able to insure your products in the event something fails.

We Offer Inexpensive Removal Services In Dublin:

It can be complicated to exercise what you need to spend for as well as what you do not. We make it easy for you by listing all the significant expenses of moving interstate, so you will be prepared for all the variables. Specialist moving companies make moving easy, yet the difficult component is finding a great company.

#man with a van #man and van #man with a van Dublin #man and van Dublin #house removals #removals dublin #office removals #house removals dublin #removal companies dublin #moving company #moving companies #moving company dublin #house movers dublin #office moving Dublin

1 note · View note

shikharsoni-blog · 4 years

Text

Tube Mastery and Monetization Review- How to earn from YouTube?

hello, and welcome to my Tube Mastery And Monetization Review.

Have you always wanted to make money with YouTube?

Perhaps you’ve run across Matt Par’s YouTube Course “Tube Mastery And Monetization,” and it has piqued your interest?

Awesome!!

It’s great to have you here today.

Within the following Tube Mastery And Monetization Review, I’ll be providing you guys with an unbiased, honest, and truthful review.

Furthermore, I’ll also be going into detail about what this product is, how it works, and ultimately how much of your hard-earned money it will cost you.

I’ll be answering questions like, What Is Tube Mastery And Monetization?

What Will I Learn using this system?

Who Is Matt Par?

What training will I receive if I decide to join?

I plan on answering these questions and more within the context of this review.

If you have ever wanted to start a YT channel but wasn’t sure where to start, you’ll want to stick around and continue reading.

I invite you to follow along, ask questions, and engage with me as I break this information down for you guys.

Without further ado, let’s jump right into things today.

Are you guys ready?

Tube Mastery And Monetization Review

Product Name: Tube Mastery And Monetization (TMM)

Owner: Matt Par

Type Of Product: YouTube Training

Price: $597 or 3 secure payments of $266

Recommended: Yes

YouTube is an excellent way to make money online in 2020.

However, most people find it difficult to set everything up and optimize it correctly.

Matt Par has considered these things and has been hard at work, creating a course that eliminates these issues.

Tube Mastery And Monetization walks you through everything from choosing a niche and creating content to launching your channel.

This complete 7 module course contains everything you need to finally make that dream come true of becoming the next YouTube rockstar.

>> Get Tube Mastery Here <<

Tube Mastery and Monetization is a complete step by step training course that shows you how to make money on YouTube.

However, what makes this YouTube course unique from any other YT course out there is you won’t need to show your face on video.

You won’t even need to record the videos yourself (If you don’t want to).

Tube Mastery will show you how to outsource everything and keep 100% of the profits.

When Matt created this course, he designed it with newbies in mind.

Therefore, you shouldn’t have any questions or feel lost when starting the training.

Launched in April 2020, TMM has already broken previous sales records set by some pretty big names in the industry.

Matt has put his heart and soul into recording these videos.

Therefore these videos are of the highest quality.

Furthermore, I found them to be highly informative, engaging, and easy to follow.

Now that you have an idea of what this program is about, let’s learn about who the owner is.

Sound good?

Who Is Matt Par?

Matt Par is a 19-year-old entrepreneur that lives in sunny Florida.

He currently runs nine different YouTube channels and makes over $30,000 a month in ad revenue alone.

Since the tender age of 14, he has been making money with YouTube.

Furthermore, Forbes, Yahoo Finance, Disrupt, and Market Watch has written an article about him and featured him on their website.

Before becoming successful with Youtube, he used to upload silly videos to YT with his high school buddies.

After one of his videos went viral and received over 100,000 views in one week, this motivated him to take this seriously.

He currently runs nine channels that cover a broad spectrum of niches within the online space.

Here are a few topics covered below.

Top ten lists

Animation

Several personal brands

Top ten lists

Animation

Several personal brands

Matt has received the gold play button from YouTube for reaching one million subscribers.

Also, he’s received multiple silver play buttons for reaching 100,000 subscribers.

When it comes to YouTube, Matt is an expert.

He is on a mission to help as many people as he can become a success with YouTube.

Are you willing to accept his help?

Here’s What I Liked About It

A complete roadmap to making money with YouTube

Fairly inexpensive start-up costs

Comes with a 60-day risk-free guarantee

Offers a secure monthly payment plan

Training is step by step and easy to follow

Ideal for newbies or experienced marketers

Here’s What I Didn’t Like About It

Training could be more detailed.

Training And Tools At A Glance

As I said earlier, the training consists of seven modules that cover a wide range of tasks.

Furthermore, there is also a wide assortment of videos you’ll need to watch as well before moving forward in training.

Here is everything you’ll gain access to when you take the plunge and become a TMM member.

Module 1- The three stages of YouTube

Beta Phase- Choosing a niche and planning your content schedule

Intermediate Phase- Upload 33 videos

Scaling Phase- Outsource your videos

Module 2- Choosing A Niche

Best ways to become successful with YouTube

Best high CPM niches

How to do market research

Bonus training: List of 100+ lucrative niches

Module 3- Setting Your Channel Up To Be Successful

The 33 rule- What it is and how to use it

The best and only YouTube tool you need

Secret SEO keyword process revealed

Planning your content strategy

Module 4 How To Upload Videos

Anatomy of a viral video

How to systemize your videos

How to discover free content

Cost-free video editing solutions

How to create high CTR thumbnails

Module 5 The Growth Module

Understanding Analytics and Algorithms

How to go viral on YouTube

Best time of day to upload

Module 6- Monetization

How to make more than most Youtubers

Various monetization methods and techniques

Matt’s favorite way to make money with YouTube

Module 7- Scaling And Taking Things To The Next Level

Hiring one person for the content creation

Crafting a video creation assembly line

Bonus fill in the blank hiring template

As you see above, there is a massive amount of information contained in these seven training modules.

Depending on how you consume this content will determine how long it will take you to complete this course.

>>Click Here To Access Tube Mastery<<

Price To Join Tube Mastery And Monetization?

You might be wondering how much you’ll need to pay for such a fantastic and extensive course on making money on YouTube.

Right?

Well, there are two payment options available to you.

They are as follows

One time payment $597 (Most popular) Save over $200

Three secure and easy payments of $266 each ($798 total)

Let’s break down the actual value you’ll get from each of the training components you see listed below.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the value of TMM is nearly $1,800.

You’re paying less than 1/3 of that by taking the one-time payment option of $597.

Also, where else can you join a mastermind group for under $1,000?

I’ve joined several mastermind groups over the years and NEVER paid less than $2,000 to get inside the group.

So, as you see, you’re getting a ton of value for the ridiculously low price of $597.

Do you feel me?

Here are a few additional payment options available at your fingertips

PayPal

Credit Card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover)

Secure wire transfer

>>Get Tube Mastery Here<<

Support At Tube Mastery And Monetization

What good is a fantastic training program going to do you if there is NO help and support?

It would be worthless.

Support is the backbone of any successful training program.

Without it, you might as well throw in the towel right now.

The help and support at TMM come in the form of a Facebook group.

Once you join, you’ll gain exclusive access to this private group.

You can bump heads with other successful YouTubers as well as Matt himself.

Ask questions, get support, hear about other people’s experiences, and interact with six and seven-figure income earners in the industry.

My Tube Mastery AND Monetization Review Conclusion

If you have ever wanted to launch a YouTube channel but lacked the information and knowledge to do so, TMM was created just for you.

Due to Matt’s extensive experience and success with YouTube, you won’t find a better teacher anywhere in the online space.

While some people may feel like this course is expensive, it’s not.

Instead of looking at this as an expense, look at it as an investment in your future.

If someone offered to teach you how to make a million dollars on YouTube, how much would that be worth to you?

Let that sink in for a minute.

Having a mindset like this is imperative if you want to have any long term success online.

Without learning the right mindset hacks, you won’t get far in this industry.

If you’ve yearned for your 15 minutes of fame, you can now claim it on YouTube.

With an ever-growing platform, YouTube is the most popular video-sharing social media site of the web.

The site itself receives millions of traffic daily from all across the globe.

If you could tap into just 3% of this, you’d be earning more than a full-time income each month.

>>Get Access Now<<

#youtube #earn money online #earn online #earn from youtube #how to grow youtube

1 note · View note