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New Post has been published on https://coinprojects.net/global-web3-metaverse-and-tax-initiatives-continue-in-the-face-of-a-market-meltdown/

Global Web3 metaverse and tax initiatives continue in the face of a market meltdown

In her monthly Expert Take column, Selva Ozelli, an international tax attorney and CPA, covers the intersection between emerging technologies and sustainability, and provides the latest developments around taxes, AML/CFT regulations and legal issues affecting crypto and blockchain.

In 2021, nonfungible tokens became the biggest disrupter in art, with artists minting, exhibiting and auctioning them and investors buying, selling and trading them. But by May 2022, NFT sales had dropped 92% from the market peak. According to data aggregator Layoffs.fyi, more than 17,000 technology laborers lost their jobs in May. The recent downturn is similar to 2018, when leading cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) fell by 80% or more.

Related: 2021 ends with a question: Are NFTs here to stay?

Immune to the digital asset market’s manic depressive volatility, Web3 developers, institutional investors, and regulators preparing to tax metaverse profits are calmly continuing with business as usual across the world.

The NFT bear market might have cautioned high-level financiers at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as central banks start to tighten monetary policy against a backdrop of slowing economic activity. And gone are the days when central bankers fretted hedge fund managers — they are more concerned about the new crowd at the door, the “Metaversians,” who are digitizing various aspects of life in 3D with artificial intelligence.

Canada

The digital asset market meltdown was foreseen by Brian Shuster, founder and CEO of Canada-based Utherverse, who has developed more than 100 patents and pending patents for core internet technologies and the Metaverse. He told me: “There’s a ton of companies out there building out the Metaverse, and frankly, most companies claiming to offer properties and tokens have dangerously underestimated the complexity of the task at hand.” He continued:

“The digital asset market meltdown is healthy for those companies which offer viable and sustainable Web3 products and technologies such as Ethereum and Avalanche to continue on. I will be launching my Utherverse utility token during 3Q of 2022.”

Meanwhile, Calgary-based Accelerate Financial Technologies announced it would establish the Accelerate Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Fund, targeting high-net-worth investors willing to take a risk on Web3 investment products and digital collectibles available on the blockchain.

Related: Crypto in Canada: Where are we today, and where are we heading?

China

With the floor price of some major NFT collections crashing over 50% over the past month amid broad sell-offs, the digital asset market meltdown has not slowed down infrastructural investment into the Metaverse in China, with NFT investment funds and fund of funds popping up every day.

Yifan He, CEO of Red Date (Hong Kong) Technology — a Chinese state-backed blockchain company — told me: “Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN) will launch the national NFT infrastructure in China. The NFT is a digital certificate or a unit of data being stored on the blockchain. Owing to their uniqueness and indivisibility, NFTs are widely used in digital art and copyrighted content. However, their potential use cases go well beyond what we see today in the art world. Technically, an NFT can be applied to any scenario where proof of interest is required, from collectible ownership and IP of creative works to documentation such as ID cards, academic certificates, real estate licenses, etc. The technology can be used to verify the authenticity of documents while also preventing them from being tampered with or stolen, as well as facilitating verification, confirmation and tracking.”

He added: “However, most NFTs today are minted on public chain technologies that are not allowed in the Chinese market. To support NFT technology development in China, the BSN has modified the public chain technologies to ‘open permissioned blockchains’ (OPBs) to overcome the regulatory hurdles in China by replacing cryptocurrency with fiat currency to pay gas fees and requiring permission for node deployment. To decouple the natural association with public chains and cryptocurrency, NFT is renamed Decentralized Digital Certificate, or DDC for short.”

According to He, “BSN-DDC is a digital certificate infrastructure network on BSN China that includes 10 OPBs. BSN-DDC offers network access, core APIs, and SDKs — a one-stop shop for businesses to develop user portals or apps for all types of NFT applications. All payments and transaction fees are paid in fiat currency via BSN-DDC portals. BSN-DDC encourages digital certificate usage beyond the field of art and entertainment collectibles with support for all types of digital certifications, documents, tickets, identification, intellectual property and more.”

“The BSN-DDC network currently is the most diverse, transparent, affordable, user-friendly blockchain infrastructure that supports the legal deployment of NFTs within China. It will officially launch by the end of January 2022 to support the mass adoption of NFTs in China,” concluded He.

Related: Chinese Blockchain-Based Mobile Payment Revolution: How the Biggest CO2 Polluter Is Becoming the World’s Leading Producer of Solar Panels

France

The film industry is tapping NFTs for funding movies, with nonfungible tokens making a big splash at the Cannes Film Festival.

In France, the movie Plush, which is set to be released in 2023, will be co-produced by the investing community through the sale of NFTs. NFT holders will receive a share of the film’s profits and be granted attendance at special screenings, and they may even see their beloved NFTs come to life in the movie.

India

Harshavardhana Kikkeri, founder and CEO of HoloWorld — a metaworld that hosts “phygital” (physical and digital) metaverses in education, sports, robotics and security — has designed HoloSuit, which contains 40 embedded sensors to track the movements of a wearer’s arms, legs and fingers, presenting them digitally to enhance interactions in the phygital world.

Japan

Japanese multinational company Sony intends to be a leader in the metaverse and AI spaces by leveraging “the unique strengths provided by its diverse businesses and expertise in game technology, which will form the basis of entertainment experiences going forward.”

The company has partnered with Manchester City FC and plans to create “new entertainment experiences” around live sporting events, and it’s also looking into the music industry and the potential of offering live virtual performances from Sony Music artists. As Sony’s CEO, Kenichiro Yoshida, explained:

“The metaverse is at the same time a social space and live network space where games, music, movies and anime intersect.”

Singapore

Riaz Mehta, founder and CEO of Singapore-based Ritestream, explained to me: “We are the team behind the leading watch-to-earn platform, Ritestream — a film and TV launchpad to fund, monetize and distribute content through leveraging blockchain technology. On the interactive app, you can watch your favorite shows and get rewarded in $RITE coin; enjoy metaverse cinemas and virtual date nights; and support content, actors and celebrities by purchasing limited edition NFTs. Not only can these NFTs help fund the shows, but they also allow users to buy and own part of them, giving them producer credits and future earning potential should the shows become popular. We have an exclusive deal to issue NFTs for the upcoming film Stealing McCloud, inspired by John McAfee, the controversial software mogul who was found dead in a Spanish prison cell in 2021 [where he was being held] for U.S. tax evasion. We’re excited to be revolutionizing how we all consume and fund content with an app where it quite simply pays to watch.”

Metacurio VS Singapore, a new joint venture between Metacurio and VS Media, will be the exclusive home for VS Media and its intellectual property, spanning segments like creating, marketing and distributing NFTs. Metacurio will offer its experience in Web3-focused creative and NFT collectability strategies and more. It will also bring its client base, having relationships with over 70 top talents and brands.

Persistence is building an ecosystem of multichain Web3 products for retail and institutional users, allowing for the creation and exchange of NFTs across chains and building products to generate opportunities and address challenges around the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism in a multichain environment.

Related: Why Singapore is one of the most crypto-friendly countries

South Africa

Nelson Mandela, a revolutionary and anti-apartheid leader who served as the first democratically elected president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, entered the Metaverse with the first Mandelaverse NFT — a collaboration between the Mandela family, TinyWins, Phoenix James Art Haus and Range Media Partners. The charitable Web3 project includes four NFT collections whose proceeds benefit the Mandela Education Program, an initiative to expand access to books to children in Africa and beyond and revolutionize how philanthropy can work.

Related: South African President Steps Down as Banks Embrace Blockchain Technology

Spain

Following Avalanche’s first-ever summit in Barcelona, the first Spanish Ethereum conference will be held in the same city from July 6 to 8. This comes as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is calling for Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation-like protection for small crypto investors in the face of the recent market meltdown.

Roberto de Arquer, co-founder and chief metaverse officer of Spain-based Gamium, explained:

“We are building the first decentralized social metaverse and the digital identity of humans.”

Gamium World is a 3D, fully immersive environment that allows users to access Gamium’s decentralized social metaverse. Player avatars create the world and can build experiences through the Gamium software development kit, including buying and selling land.

Elsewhere in the Metaverse, holders of NFTs related to video game real estate have lost thousands to millions of dollars from transaction fees, phishing attacks, rug pulls and more. In a Reddit comment, u/MDKAOD recently explained the virtual real estate business: “Entropia Universe (formerly Project Entropia) has had land deeds since the early 2000’s. John ‘Neverdie’ Jacobs is the big name DJ who owns an entire space station in that game and now there are whole ‘partner planets’ owned (at least in history) by Lemmy from Motorhead, Michael Jackson’s estate (at least was in talks at one point, I don’t know if it ever materialized) and at least one other big profile name that escapes me.” He continued:

“Virtual real estate has always been unobtainable and as far as I’m concerned has always been a way to launder money.”

Related: Spain tackles corruption with blockchain AI and amendments to its anti-corruption laws

Turkey

Mehmet Eryilmaz, founder of Turkey-based Faro, explained to me: “Faro is a tokenized entertainment company that produces films and TV content, owns music catalogs and IP, and manages live entertainment and Web3 representation rights. The company leverages peak interest in local content, soaring production budgets, Turkey’s content export success and post-COVID live entertainment demand with forward-looking Web3 themes of collective ownership and fan-based utility-focused new businesses. Faro’s operations are backed by physical world recurring revenue media assets. Faro tokenholders can invest and profit from revenue rights from all Faro productions and assets. Furthermore, they get access, utility and generate revenues from all fan-centric NFT offerings.” He added, “Faro wants to scale its business across emerging markets with the same model.”

Refik Anadol, the first artist to use artificial intelligence in an immersive public artwork — and whose work was featured at the Museum of Modern Art in New York — has been unphased by the NFT market downturn. During April and May, he continued to sell his NFTs. The sales for his “An Important Memory for Humanity” collection totaled $6.2 million, and a one-of-one NFT titled “Living Architecture: Casa Batlló” fetched $1.38 million via his first auction at Christie’s.

Related: Crypto and NFTs meet regulation as Turkey takes on the digital future

United Arab Emirates

Lokesh Rao, CEO and co-founder of Trace Network Labs — which has offices in the United Arab Emirates — explained to me that his platform “enables brands, especially fashion, to create new categories of unique digital products which can be used to exchange product details with various Web2 and Web3 platforms.” Recently, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Tribute Brand, The Fabricant, Institute of Digital Fashion and Red DAO showcased fashion NFTs at the Decentral Art Pavilion in Venice and discussed the future of the industry.

By 2030, metaverse technology is expected to contribute $4 billion to the economy of Dubai and support the creation of 42,000 virtual jobs.

Related: The United Arab Emirates’ green digitization vision

United States

Popular NFT collection Bored Ape Yacht Club, created by United States-based Yuga Labs, saw its floor price plunge to 88 Ether (ETH) (about $153,000) on May 27, down from 138 ETH (over $390,000 at the time) a month prior.

In a Reddit comment, u/Dr_Eastman shared their market analysis for the severe drop in prices:

“Seriously why the fuck would I want to buy a receipt of a monkey pic for higher than what the first buyer bought it for?”

This is particularly salient given that U.S. courts say computer- or AI-generated art and music has no copyright protection.

Nevertheless, Bill Starkov, founder of the Apocalyptic Apes NFT project, thinks “a correction is super healthy for the crypto/NFT space,” as he told me. The project’s female-led Queen Ape collection and second NFT drop raised over $1.5 million and sold out in under three hours, just before the downturn. Investors in the space are now using this downturn to go NFT shopping like it’s Black Friday. 15 Queen Ape NFTs were recently revealed to be one-of-one music NFTs, paired with songs by emerging music artists. “This is a huge opportunity for emerging artists to push forward their careers through Web3 by attaching themselves and promoting their music to an already established, loyal and passionate NFT community,” said Starkov. “In addition, we’re giving a generous revenue share of 45% streaming to the holders of these Queen Ape music NFTs. This is an opportunity for emerging artists to be introduced to thousands of people who will be incentivized to promote them.” Other female-led NFT projects include DeadFellaz and Gutter Cat Gang.

PolyientX, a Web3 innovator providing tools to gain more value and utility from NFTs, launched a product allowing NFT holders of selected projects to claim weekly rewards. “In the years we have been innovating in the NFT space, two things have become painstakingly clear,” said PolyientX’s head of product, Nick Casares.

“NFTs have tremendous growth potential and NFT communities want additional value. PX Drops serves to merge these opportunities.”

Thirty years after releasing her infamous book Sex, pop icon Madonna collaborated with digital artist Beeple to create three charitable NFTs portraying her nude avatar with environmental themes. Hip-hop legend Jim Jones teamed up with Mogul for an NFT, while musical legend Katy Perry offered her De Soi NFTs via FlickPlay — “a social metaverse platform that is interoperable with Tik Tok-like engagement, Pokemon Go-esque gameplay, and AR camera features built to offer real-world utility to digital NFT accessories,” Pierina Merino, FlickPlay’s founder and CEO, explained to me.

In the world of sports, baseball living legend Miguel Cabrera partnered with FlickPlay, basketball stars Andre Drummond and Ty Jerome partnered with Chibi Dinos, former basketball champion and fashion icon Dennis Rodman partnered with Jeff Hood of MetaCurio, while the McLaren Formula 1 Team and McLaren Shadow esports team partnered with OKX to launch their NFTs.

In the world of games, “NiftyChess, a Web3 startup, established Treasure.Chess.com in partnership with Chess.com to create the first NFT marketplace enabling the purchase, sale, creation and collection of NFTs of chess games, including by chess masters, without needing to buy cryptocurrency first,” explained co-founders Patrick Gallagher and Joseph Schiarizzi.

But you need not be a legend, icon, star or master to get noticed in the metaverse, believe Akbar Hamid and Simone Berry, founders of People of Crypto Lab (POC) — a creative and innovation lab dedicated to increasing diversity, participation and representation in Web3. Its mission is to build the metaverse blueprint for inclusion across Web3 by developing, investing and promoting brands with diverse stories, teams and projects. Berry explained:

“I firmly believe that Web3 can only scale if diversity and inclusion are rooted in the foundation of what is being built. Black and brown women, people of color and LGBTQIA+ people have combined spending power and unprecedented cultural influence that dwarfs the influence of any other community. Culture drives commerce, which is why we need to actively educate and onboard these communities in order to ensure an equitable, profitable future for Web3.”

Microsoft, Apple and Meta lead in developing metaverse technology. Web3 game developer Epic, which hosted pop star Ariana Grande’s metaverse concert, has shown unprecedented global scale and revenue during the pandemic. It is also embroiled in a patent infringement lawsuit with Utherverse and has said it will fight Apple and Google to keep the Metaverse open.

Fidelity launched two exchange-traded funds to invest in metaverse Web3 technologies, while a16z rolled out its fourth fund, worth $4.5 billion.

Vietnam

Regarding Vietnam, Tri Pham — co-founder of KardiaChain and founder of Whydah — told me: “KardiaChain is the first decentralized interoperable and self-optimized blockchain infrastructure. We aim to create a unified platform that combines all participants’ collective strengths to lay the foundation for global blockchain mass adoption.”

OECD’s digital asset public consultation document

Digital assets and businesses established in the Metaverse are among several issues presenting challenges for countries relating to cross-border tax, money laundering, consumer protection and personal data legislation. For this reason, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a public consultation document on March 22 on a new global framework for fiscal transparency that would allow the presentation of reports and the exchange of information regarding crypto assets. It also covers proposed amendments to the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) for countries’ automatic exchange of information regarding financial accounts.

The new framework would increase the ability of participating countries’ tax authorities to monitor the transactions residents make on foreign cryptocurrency exchanges. Most, if not all, of the 100-plus countries participating in the CRS are expected to adopt it.

The U.S. has already adopted measures requiring taxpayers to report digital asset tax information.

Related: Tips to claim tax losses with the US Internal Revenue Service

At a public consultation meeting on May 23, the crypto industry urged the OECD to implement the framework in phases.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Selva Ozelli, Esq., CPA, is an international tax attorney and certified public accountant who frequently writes about tax, legal and accounting issues for Tax Notes, Bloomberg BNA, other publications and the OECD.

Source link By Cointelegraph By Selva Ozelli

#Altcoin #Bitcoin #BlockChain #BlockchainNews #Crypto #ETH #Etherium

#Altcoin #Bitcoin #BlockChain #BlockchainNews #crypto #ETH #Etherium #Blockchain #CryptoPress

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somegirlsnerdywords2 · 3 years

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Favourite Anime 2020

1. Fruits Basket 2nd Season (Rating: 10/10 - 25 Episodes - Spring 2020)

Genres: Slice of Life, Comedy, Supernatural, Drama, Romance, Shoujo

Synopsis: A year has passed since Tooru Honda began living in the Souma residence, and she has since created stronger relationships with its inhabitants Shigure, Kyou, and Yuki. She has also grown closer to the rest of the Souma family and has become familiar with their ancestral secret, having helped them with many of their personal issues. The closer Tooru gets, however, the more she begins to realize that their secret holds a darker truth than she first presumed. Summer is approaching and Tooru is invited to spend her days with the Soumas, mainly Kyou and Yuki. Tooru wishes for an easy-going vacation, but her close relationships with the two boys and the rest of the Soumas may prove to cause trouble. As they grow more intimate, their carefree time together is hindered by older hardships and feelings from the past that begin to resurface. The Eternal Banquet also dawns on the members of the zodiac, and they must tend to their duties alongside the unnerving head of the family, Akito Souma. With the banquet approaching and a plethora of feelings to be solved, will Tooru's life with the Soumas remain peaceful, or will she find herself in a situation from which she cannot escape? [Written by MAL Rewrite]

2. Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun (Rating: 10/10 - 12 Episodes - Winter 2020)

Genres: Comedy, School, Shounen, Supernatural

Synopsis: The famous "Seven Wonders" that every school seems to have are a staple of Japanese urban legends. One of the most well-known of these tales is that of Hanako-san: the ghost of a young girl who haunts the school's bathrooms. Kamome Academy has its own version of Hanako-san's legend. Rumors claim that if one successfully manages to summon Hanako-san, she will grant her summoner any wish. Lured by the gossip, many people have tried to call upon her, yet every attempt has failed. However, when Nene Yashiro, a girl hoping for romantic fortune, dares to summon Hanako-san, she discovers that the rumored "girl" is actually a boy! After a series of unfortunate events involving Nene's romantic desires, she is unwillingly entangled in the world of the supernatural, becoming Hanako-kun's assistant. Soon, she finds out about Hanako-kun's lesser-known duty: maintaining the fragile balance between mortals and apparitions. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

3. Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta... (Rating: 9.5/10 - 12 episodes - Spring 2020)

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Fantasy, School

Synopsis: Most people would prefer being the protagonist of a world full of adventure, be it in a game or in another world. But, unfortunately, a certain girl is not so lucky. Regaining the memories of her past life, she realizes that she was reborn in the world of Fortune Lover—one of the games she used to play.

Unfortunately, the character she was reincarnated into—Katarina Claes—is the game's main antagonist, who faces utter doom in every ending. Using her extensive knowledge of the game, she takes it upon herself to escape from the chains of this accursed destiny.

However, this will not be an easy feat, especially since she needs to be cautious as to not set off death flags that may speed up the impending doom she is trying to avoid. Even so, to make a change that will affect the lives of everyone around her, she strives—not as the heroine—but as the villainess.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

4. Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu 2nd Season (Rating: 9.5/10 - 12 Episodes - Summer 2020)

Genres: Psychological, Drama, Thriller, Fantasy

Synopsis: A reunion that was supposed to spell the arrival of peaceful times is quickly shattered when Subaru Natsuki and Emilia return to Irlam village. Witnessing the devastation left behind by the calamities known as Sin Archbishops, Subaru sinks into the depths of despair as his ability to redo proves futile. As the group makes their way to the Sanctuary in search of answers, Subaru has an unexpected encounter with the Witch of Greed—Echidna. Subjected to her untamed rhythm, he is forced to dive into the spirals of the past and future. At the same time, several mysterious threats set their sights on the Sanctuary, heralding a horrific fate for the hapless people trapped within. Everlasting contracts, past sins, and unrequited love will clash and submerge into a river of blood in the second season of Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu. Pushed to the brink of hopelessness, how long will Subaru's resolve to save his loved ones last? [Written by MAL Rewrite]

5.Chihayafuru 3 (Rating: 9.5/10 - 24 Episodes - Fall 2019 Leftover)

Genres: Game, Slice of Life, Sports, Drama, School, Josei

Synopsis: Winning the high school team tournament was a great accomplishment for the Mizusawa members. Each of them has made great strides in improving themselves, and the victory symbolizes how far they've come. But after accomplishing one goal, their individual aims are within reach. Chihaya Ayase has her sights set on Wakamiya Shinobu and the title of Queen, and now that Taichi Mashima has made it into Class A, he can finally compete against Arata Wataya. Everyone in Mizusawa wants to get better, and there's no telling what the future holds if they keep trying. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

6. Boku no Hero Academia 4th Season (Rating: 9/10 - 25 Episodes - Fall 2019 Leftover)

Genres: Action, Comedy, Super Power, School, Shounen

Synopsis: After successfully passing his Provisional Hero License exam, Izuku "Deku" Midoriya seeks out an extracurricular internship with a professional hero agency. At the recommendation of his mentor All Might, Midoriya lands a position under All Might's former sidekick, Sir Nighteye, now a famous hero in his own right. As Midoriya's classmates further their own abilities through various internships, up-and-coming villain Kai Chisaki utilizes his terrifying powers to gather favor in the criminal underworld. Known by the moniker Overhaul, Chisaki's ambitions collide with the League of Villains and its leader, Tomura Shigaraki. Through his work with Sir Nighteye, Midoriya discovers Chisaki's crime syndicate and the villain's hostile relationship with a mysterious young girl named Eri. Fearing for the child's safety, Midoriya and his upperclassman Mirio Toogata must work together to put an end to Chisaki's reign of terror. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

7. Haikyuu!!: To the Top 2nd Season (Rating: 9/10 - 12 Episodes - Fall 2020)

Genres: Comedy, Sports, Drama, School, Shounen

Synopsis: Karasuno enters into the second half of Nationals with brand-new opponents: Inarizaki High. The long-standing powerhouse team includes a few familiar faces, namely Miya Atsumu. Named Japan's "best high school setter," Miya previously rubbed elbows with Kageyama at the All-Japan Youth Intensive Training Camp. Karasuno will have to overcome a setter that outranks their own, and Atsumu's twin brother is on the team, too. (Source: ANN)

8. Haikyuu!!: To the Top (Rating: 8.5/10 - 13 Episodes - Winter 2020)

Genres: Comedy, Sports, Drama, School, Shounen

Synopsis: After their triumphant victory over Shiratorizawa Academy, the Karasuno High School volleyball team has earned their long-awaited ticket to nationals. As preparations begin, genius setter Tobio Kageyama is invited to the All-Japan Youth Training Camp to play alongside fellow nationally recognized players. Meanwhile, Kei Tsukishima is invited to a special rookie training camp for first-years within the Miyagi Prefecture. Not receiving any invitations himself, the enthusiastic Shouyou Hinata feels left behind. However, Hinata does not back down. Transforming his frustration into self-motivation, he boldly decides to sneak himself into the same rookie training camp as Tsukishima. Even though Hinata only lands himself a job as the ball boy, he comes to see this as a golden opportunity. He begins to not only reflect on his skills as a volleyball player but also analyze the plethora of information available on the court and how he can apply it. As the much-anticipated national tournament approaches, the members of Karasuno's volleyball team attempt to overcome their weak points and refine their skills, all while aiming for the top! [Written by MAL Rewrite]

9. Kakushigoto (Rating: 8.5/10 - 12 Episodes - Spring 2020)

Genres: Slice of Life, Comedy, Shounen

Synopsis: Kakushi Gotou is a somewhat popular manga artist whose works are known for inappropriate content. Because of this raunchiness, when his daughter Hime was born, he vowed to keep his profession hidden from her, believing that she will be disillusioned if she finds out. This paranoia-induced belief leads Kakushi into hectic situations. Despite being a single father, he does his best and often resorts to extreme ends just to protect his secret, such as guising as a salaryman every day or holding emergency drills in case Hime somehow finds her way to his workplace. Kakushigoto tells the story of a father and daughter living side by side, maintaining their peaceful existence as the father attempts to preserve the status quo. However, there is a saying: "there are no secrets that time cannot reveal." In time, Hime must learn the reality behind the things she took for granted as she grew up. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

10. Fire Force Season 2 (Rating: 8/10 - 24 Episodes - Summer 2020)

Genres: Action, Supernatural, Shounen

Synopsis: After his confrontation in the Nether with his younger brother Shou, Shinra Kusakabe's resolve to become a hero that saves lives from the flame terror strengthens. Finding a way to turn the Infernals back into people, unraveling the mystery of the Evangelist and Adolla Burst, and saving his mother and Shou—these are the goals Shinra has in mind. However, he has come to realize that attaining these goals will not be easy, especially with the imminent danger the Evangelist poses. The Evangelist's plan is clear: to gather the eight pillars—the individuals who possess Adolla Burst—and sacrifice them to recreate the Great Cataclysm from 250 years ago. Having been revealed by the First Pillar that the birth of a new pillar is approaching, Shinra is determined to protect his fellow pillars from the Evangelist. Thus, the fiery battle between the Special Fire Force and the Evangelist ignites. Together with the Special Fire Force, Shinra's fight continues as he uncovers the truth about the Great Cataclysm and the nature of Adolla Bursts, as well as the mysteries behind human combustion. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

#fruits basket 2nd season #jibaku shounen hanako-kun #Toilet-bound Hanako-kun #Otome Game no Hametsu Flag shika Nai Akuyaku Reijou ni Tensei shiteshimatta #my next life as a villainess #re:zero season 2 #chihayafuru 3 #boku no hero academia #haikyuu to the top #kakushigoto

18 notes · View notes

gigslist · 3 years

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6 Voiceover and Radio Casting Calls - Paid Remote Jobs

Short Film, TV, Commercial, Corporate and Comedy Radio Talk Show

6 Voiceover Casting Calls - Paid Remote Jobs

=================================== ===================================

Subcultural - an interactive audio show examining interesting subcultures

VOICEOVER

REALITY TV & DOCUMENTARY COMEDIANS & IMPROV

PAID WORK FROM HOME

Deadline: May 1, 2021 4:59 PM

Company Spoon Radio

Clint Sears, Head of Content

Production Description

Looking for a CREATOR/HOST to develop their own weekly, interactive, hour-long Spoon Originals audio show (please see http://spoonrad.io/originals) on the Spoon Radio network app based around the following concept: "Subcultural: A quirky and interactive exploration of the most unique groups in and outside of society." This show will be a PG to PG-13 exploration of interesting subcultures (here are just a few examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_subcultures.) The host will research and breakdown a new subculture each week while finding ways to keep the interactive audience (chat, polls and live call-in audience guests) engaged. This is a concept to build the show around but in the end it will be 100% YOUR show. Feel free to explain YOUR take and how you'd tackle it.

Roles

Host/Creator (WOC strongly encouraged to apply!) (Voiceover): Female, 18-23

The creator/host will do their own research, develop the content and book their own guests (if they want them). This is our concept but it will be YOUR show!

If you are naturally curious, gregarious and can get others excited about the things you are into, then you are the person we need.

Rehearsal and Production Dates & Locations

No professional equipment needed, we pride ourselves on the audio quality of our technology.

Compensation & Union Contract Details

Professional Pay: $100/Weekly

Key Details

Seeking talent:

Nationwide (United States)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/clintisawesome

=================================== ===================================

Pillow Commercial

Actors / Actress at Home Shoot for Online Ad (Pillow)

ONLINE COMMERCIALS & PROMOS

PAID NONUNION

Deadline: May 10, 2021 5:00 PM

Company

Stephen Tegel, creative dir. Production states: "[Stephen] has helped dozens of national brands create high-volume ads and sales campaigns with well-known doctors, spokespeople, and marketing professionals."

Casting an online advertisement. Note: Actors will bring to life real stories from real customers.

Roles

Man (Lead): 31-39

this character brings life to a real customer’s story using our product

We are looking for a man in his 30s who has a great attitude and personality to record themselves at home promoting one of our products a pillow. The production process includes: downloading a free video teleprompter app into your Iphone , loading the script up on the app, filming yourself reciting the script + additional b-roll shots, and exporting the scripts via gmail/google drive. To be eligible for this role, you must additionally have a basic knowledge of framing and lighting as well as a basic understanding of google drive. If you own a tripod, that is a plus, as some of the shots need to be hands free.

Required Media: Headshot/Photo, Video Reel

Required Skills: Acting Techniques: Improvisation

Woman (Lead): 22-65

this character brings life to a real customer’s story using our product

We are looking for a woman between 20s-60s who has a great attitude and personality to record themselves at home promoting one of our products - a pillow. The production process includes: downloading a free video teleprompter app into your Iphone , loading the script up on the app, filming yourself reciting the script + additional b-roll shots, and exporting the scripts via gmail/google drive. To be eligible for this role, you must additionally have a basic knowledge of framing and lighting as well as a basic understanding of google drive. If you own a tripod, that is a plus, as some of the shots need to be hands free.

Required Media: Headshot/Photo, Video Reel

Required Skills: Acting Techniques: Improvisation

Shoots the month of April

Compensation & Union Contract Details

StipendPays $140

Seeking talent from: Newport Beach, CA

More Details

Please include a headshot and if you do have a video reel, feel free to submit that as well! If hired, you’ll be shooting with a Commercial Director who has shot ads for several large national campaigns. His focus here is finding actors capable of delivering powerful, emotional performances: men & women who can bring dramatic stories of transformation to life.

Shooting instructions

information about the product and script will be provided

[email protected]

13237428551

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-tegel-99a13822

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Telehealth Explainer Web Video

VOICEOVER: CORPORATE & INTERNET VIDEOS (VOICEOVER)

PAID WORK FROM HOME NONUNION

Deadline: April 13, 2021 4:00 PM Company Ergo Possum Ltd. (Client: TeamHealth)

Production Description

Seeking a female voiceover professional, 40s-60s, to narrate a 45-second web explainer video for website, social media, and email use. It's a lightly comedic piece focused on the relatable frustrations of conventional doctor appointment scheduling, and the better alternative provided by telehealth services.

Roles

Narrator (Voiceover): 40-60

Comforting, relatable narrator with a sense of humor about the craziness of conventional healthcare appointment scheduling who also speaks with some enthusiasm and authority about the alternative offered. Final piece is 145 words.

Record remotely. Must have access to professional recording setup and provide completed recordings with your own resources.

Professional Pay: $200 - $300 Perpetual license to use the voiceover in this one piece, which itself has a likely shelf life of 18 months but may be used beyond that if needed.

Note: "We do not have any non-compete stipulations and talent are free to pursue other opportunities with similar clients."

Key Details

Seeking talent:

Worldwide

913-284-1366

[email protected]

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'Kiss Of The Incubus'

FILM & DOCUMENTARY (VOICEOVER)

PAID NONUNION

Deadline: May 7, 2021 8:19 AM

Company: Acid Unlimited, Black Fog Pictures

Cory A. Jones, writer-dir.-prod.

Production Description

Casting "Kiss Of The Incubus," a feature-length film. Synopsis: An erotic psychological horror story about a young woman's struggles to liberate herself from a toxic past only to be faced with a powerful sex demon that visits her in the night. Production states: "Candidates should be aware that this production will feature some very strong material with regard to Sexuality, and some Horror Violence/Gore. May not be suitable for everyone, please keep this in mind when submitting. Looking for strong, confident, responsible, and professional talent of all experience levels." Note: Still accepting new submissions for secondary lead; Jonelle.

Jonelle (Supporting): Female, 25-45

Richly textured supporting/secondary lead role that will require a highly talented and open minded actress to portray. Jonelle is our lead character; Lillian's Girlfriend of almost 4 months. She is a confident, tomboyish, fitness-oriented, openly Lesbian professional bartender. She takes her work, and lifestyle seriously, but does not take herself too seriously. She has a sassy, sarcastic sense of humor, but is always sincere and humble. Having been a romantic free-wheeler for some time; her deepening connection with Lillian is motivating her toward desiring a more serious relationship. Her outward confidence masks an emotional sensitivity that comes with deep rooted self compassion struggles resulting from Jonelle's complicated personal history. She should be a relatable, and lovable character whom the audience will naturally want to root for. Note: Full nudity required for two simulated sex scenes, one shower scene and two non-sexual nude scenes where the actress will be in simulated bondage. Only talent who are comfortable with nudity and sexuality as part of their performance should apply. Pays $450/day and is available to Nonunion talent.

Ethnicity: Ethnically Ambiguous / Multiracial, Latino / Hispanic, White / European Descent

Required Media: Headshot/Photo, Cover Letter

Requires Nudity: Yes

Required Skills:

Sports/Fitness Dance Comedy Acting Techniques: Drama Training Rehearsals expected to commence in late April in Lodi, CA; tentatively begins shooting in Aug. in Lodi and Sacramento, CA.

Professional Pay: $450/DailyPays $450/day. Travel expenses, hotel, and meals will also be provided.

Seeking talent from: Lodi, CA; Sacramento, CA; San Francisco, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Reno, NV

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-jones-96098329

https://www.productionhub.com/profiles/details/225332

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Voiceover for Animated Television Series

VOICEOVER: ANIMATION & VIDEO GAMES (VOICEOVER)

PAID WORK FROM HOME NONUNION

Deadline :June 8, 2021 4:59 PM

Company: New Ray Studios

Lisa Swanson, casting dir.

Production Description

Casting voiceover talent for an animated television series in pre-production (being prepped for a pilot). Specifically seeking female voice artists who can perform a young boy's voice ranging from 6-12 with an American dialect. Also casting various male and female adult roles.

Roles

Josh (Lead) (Voiceover): Female, 9-12

Languages: English

Accents: Midwest American

Required Media: Voice Reel

Recording remotely.

Professional Pay

Seeking talent: Worldwide

An email application to [email protected].

=================================== ===================================

'Cold Feet'

CATEGORY:

FILM: SHORT FILMS (VOICEOVER)

PAID WORK FROM HOME NONUNION

Deadline: April 20, 2021 4:59 PM

Company: Hawk Zindell, prod.-dir.

Description

Casting "Cold Feet," a short film. Synopsois: Based loosely on Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart," "Cold Feet" is a psychological horror/comedy about a young woman who’s navigating the frustrating world of wedding planning, while being haunted by an extremely tacky wedding dress.

Roles

Olivia (Lead): 24-28 pays $250.

Olivia is a stressed-out young woman trying to plan her wedding. She is a perfectionist (she's the girl with the desk drawer dedicated to her artfully organized bullet journal supplies), loves beautiful things (she’s the girl with the Instagram life you want), but most of all Olivia likes peace, quiet, and being left alone. Unfortunately, those things are in short supply, both as her family and friends pester her about wedding planning details, and as a terrible wedding dress mysteriously appears and seems to haunt her.

Ethnicity: All Ethnicities

Required Media: Headshot/Photo, Video Reel

Brenda (Supporting): Female, 55-60 pays $100 (audio-only role). Olivia’s well-meaning but intrusive future mother-in-law. If Olivia has a minute, Kathy just has a few more questions about where to seat Uncle Teddy.

Required Media: Headshot/Photo, Audio or Video Reel

Rehearsal and Production Dates & Locations

Shoots May 8 and 9 in Colorado.

Stipend: $100 - $250Pays $250 for two shoot days, with pre-production time and pickups as needed. Supporting role pays $100.

Key Details

Seeking talent from:

Boulder, CO; Denver, CO

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hawk-zindell-5833025a

=================================== ===================================

#voiceover casting calls #voice over casting call #work from home voice over work

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husheduphistory · 3 years

Text

Evil in Arkansas: The Shattered Hopes and Horrors of the Crescent Hotel

When people arrived in Eureka Springs, Arkansas in May 1886 the excitement was palpable in the air. After two years of construction a new hotel was opening, but this was no typical boarding house. This hotel promised luxury, and it delivered. Large and airy rooms, an extravagant dining area, opulent gardens, swimming pools, tennis courts, fine linen, stables, and impressive landscapes all set the stage for a dream-like experience. It opened on such a positive note, but in 1940 when the owner walked out the doors for the last time they left a house of horror behind them.

The Crescent Hotel was an architectural marvel strategically placed amid natural wonders. The waters of the Ozarks were becoming known all over the nation for having alleged healing powers and the Eureka Springs Improvement Company, founded by the former Governor of Arkansas, knew the best way to get people to visit was to give them a place to stay. After two years of construction the hotel opened with a bang in the form of a gala ball, a full orchestra, and a banquet dinner for four hundred of the country’s most prestigious all traveling to Arkansas to experience what the Eureka Springs Times Echo called “America’s most luxurious resort hotel.” The opening night entertained former governors and the Republican presidential nominee James G. Blaine, but one person not mentioned was “Michael”, the Irish mason who fell to his death inside the building during construction.

The Crescent Hotel circa 1886.

As much as people enjoyed the parties and extravagance, it was not enough to keep a steady stream of visitors coming through the doors. When it became increasingly clear that nearly sixty natural springs in the region did not actually wield any healing abilities the reservations dried up leaving the future of the Crescent Hotel in question. Unable to keep its seventy-eight rooms full of tourists, the hotel transitioned into the Crescent College & Conservatory for Young Women in 1908. It became one of the most exclusive boarding schools in the country for “fine young ladies” while still functioning as a resort during the summer months. Newspapers advertised the school as having “Preparatory and College courses. Certificate privilege. Music. Art. Expression. Domestic Science. 23 new pianos. New $2,000 Kimball pipe organ. $300,000 fireproof building, elevator, rooms with private bath. Horseback riding is a prominent feature of life at the college.” The perks were printed, advertised, and sung for all to know. What was kept more quiet was that allegedly in the early years of the Conservatory a young woman fell to her death from one of the top-story windows. With the 1930s came the Great Depression and like the fate of the hotel before it, the money coming in was not enough to sustain it and the school closed in 1934.

Residents of the Crescent College & Conservatory for Young Women. Image via https://crescent-hotel.com/history.shtml

On Thanksgiving Day 1925 the residents of Muscatine, Iowa had their radio stations tuned in to KTNT and were hearing the voice of Norman Baker for the first time. Baker, a former machinist, performance artist, and art instructor, had recently landed a license for a 500-watt station greatly due to his promises to “popularize Muscatine, Iowa throughout the world.” He knew his audience, a rural population that was deeply suspicious of “big business”, and his message became us -vs- them with Baker claiming he was in the corner of the rural people, launching venomous attacks on air against corporate trusts, Wall Street, and the American Medical Association, just to name a few. Strategically laced into the tirades were advertisements for the many mail order products Baker was selling to his audience. By 1929 Baker was already wealthy and well known, but then he heard about the doctor.

For many years Baker was a vocal critic of medical professionals and when he heard about Dr. Charles Ozias and his cancer sanitorium in Kansas City he declared on air that he was going to investigate. According to Baker, cancer was caused by aluminum products and surgeons looking to remove the disease from the body were only “cutters” looking for a payday. He announced that he was looking for five volunteers to be treated in Kansas City. The spots were quickly filled and in the spring and summer of 1929 they were treated by Dr. Ozias. By the fall of that year Baker was piecing together his new magazine, TNT, and in it he was planning a feature declaring that cancer did not require surgery, that a series of injections was the secret to curing the disease. By January 1930 he acquired an elixir recipe from Dr. Ozais and was freely proclaiming in his publication that the treatment was a success and that everyone could rest easy now knowing that cancer could be cured by his mixture of glycerin, carbolic acid, alcohol, brown corn silk, clover leaves, and a “tea” brewed from watermelon seeds. In the same year he opened his own hospital, the Baker Institute in Muscatine, a place he claimed could cure cancer easily and effectively. His words, advertisements, and creeds were all positive, but they were also blatant lies. What the public did not know was that none of the five volunteers were recovering. In December 1929 the first volunteer died and was quickly followed by the other four, all leaving their money to line Baker’s silk pockets.

Norman Baker. Image via Grossheim Collection/Musser Public Library/https://muscatinejournal.com/

In April 1930 Morris Fishbein, the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, came for Baker, his hospital, and his bogus “cures” for cancer that were killing people at an alarming rate. The response from Baker was furious and the result was a war of words filled with vitriol, accusations, and extravagant lies. In April 1930 the Journal of the American Medical Association stated:

“What is Mr. Baker doing with the money that he is snaring from the pockets of sufferers with cancer and wheedling from the funds of chiropractors, naturopaths, nostrum promoters and other medical malcontents? The viciousness of Mr. Baker’s broadcasting lies not in what he says about the American Medical Association but in the fact that he induces sufferers from cancer who might have some chance for their lives, if seen early and properly treated, to resort to his nostrum.”

Baker responded with a $500,000 lawsuit against the American Medical Association for defamation while also claiming that they sent armed assassins to kill him, assassins that he successfully fought off in a shootout. On May 12th 1930 he held an outdoor “demonstration” of his cancer cure, drinking a large amount of the concoction before performing open air surgery on a sixty-eight year old man he claimed had cancerous tissue on his brain. Before tens of thousands of people he opened the man's skull and applied his elixir before declaring “Cancer is cured.” People flocked to him. By the end of 1930 he had made today’s equivalent of 4.8 million dollars off of people’s suffering.

While business boomed for Baker the American Medical Association continued their fight, debunking his open-air demonstration and slamming his broadcasts using scientific fact against him. Finally, at the end of May 1931 his broadcast license was revoked and a warrant was issued for his arrest for practicing medicine without a license. Baker fled the state and spent some time in Mexico before returning to Iowa, serving one day in jail for his medical practice, and making an unsuccessful bid for a Senate seat. He left Iowa but in 1937 he resurfaced in Eureka Springs as the new owner of the Crescent Hotel.

The Crescent Hotel was reopened as Baker Hospital and the horrors immediately resumed. Claiming he could cure cancer and aided by the “healing springs” surrounding his “Castle in the Sky” thousands of people went to him, excitedly putting their lives directly into his deadly hands. Baker peddled multiple elixirs and advertised that they, along with fresh air, healthy food, and exercise were “proven” to cure cancer. With all its promises, its setting on a high hill overlooking the Ozarks, and its lavender and purple painted walls the Baker Hospital probably seemed like a soothing oasis when in fact what lay behind the doors was pure evil.

Baker Hospital advertisement. Image via https://crescent-hotel.com/history.shtml

Baker took in patients that had money and no nearby family, forcing them to sign papers willing all of their money and belongings to him should something happen to them. He also forced their signature on letters to be sent out at a later date stating that their health was vastly improving. He advertised treatments of elixirs and exercise but he left out that he also included drilling holes in patient’s skulls, painful injections, and brutal surgeries allegedly carried out in the dank basement. Those patients suffering and screaming were whisked away to the sealed off “psychiatric ward”, far from the eyes and ears of those touring the facility before unknowingly signing away a life to a madman. Relatives of patients would receive the pre-signed letters from their family members stating their improving health before finally getting one from Baker, regretfully informing them of their family member peacefully passing and requesting money to handle their final affairs. The money went into his pocket and the bodies were disposed of secretly while some pieces of those who passed before them rested in multiple jars stacked in the morgue and buried outside.

For approximately two years Baker preyed on the sick, unaware that he was being investigated by federal authorities. On September 1st 1939 Baker was finally arrested but the charge was not for medical malpractice, it was for mail fraud for sending out brochures claiming he had a cure for cancer.

On January 24th 1940 Baker appeared in court where he and two other employees of the Baker Hospital were convicted. Baker was fined $4,000 and sentenced to serve four years at the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. It was determined at his trial that Baker made approximately four million dollars from the dying patients. It is unknown exactly how many people lost their lives because of Norman Baker and his hospital.

Mugshot of Norman Baker. Image via https://crescent-hotel.com/history.shtml

Baker was released from prison on July 19, 1944 after serving four years during which he stated “If I could keep my radio station open, I would make a million dollars out of the suckers of the states.” He moved to Florida where he lived until his death in 1958.

From 1940 to 1946 the hotel sat empty before passing through several hands and suffering a massive fire in 1967. On February 28th 1997 the building was purchased by current owners, member of the Roenigk family, who committed to a plan to restore the Crescent Hotel to its former glory. Today the Crescent Hotel offers guests fifteen acres of trails and gardens, guest rooms with balconies, fine dining, a swimming pool, and the New Moon Spa. Another feature of the Crescent Hotel draws heavily on its tragic past, the ghost tours. Considered “America’s Most Haunted Hotel” the guests of the Crescent frequently report sightings of apparitions, doors slamming on their own, disembodied voices, unexplained sounds and strange sensations. Some report seeing Baker, others report watching nurses walking down the hall, but others report activity that they attribute to Michael the Irish mason or to the women who called the former school home.

The Crescent Hotel circa 2014. Image via Alan Islas https://commons.wikimedia.org/

While the horrors of the hotel are available to all guests through tours, the history archives on the fourth floor, and a Walking Tour Book available at the front desk, the man responsible for it all lays in a grave nearly 500 miles away in Muscatine, Iowa where he first planted the seeds of his monstrous medical scheme.

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.

Grave of Norman Baker in Muscatin, Iown. Image via Findagrave.com.

****************************

Sources:

The 1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa https://crescent-hotel.com/history.shtml

Legends of America: The Haunted Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ar-crescenthotel/

Historic Hotels of America https://www.historichotels.org/us/hotels-resorts/1886-crescent-hotel-and-spa/history.php

Newspapers.com

FindAGrave.com

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ofcmckenna · 4 years

Text

new york’s very own mckenna asher was spotted on broadway street in jimmy choo romy pumps . your resemblance to taylor hill is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your twenty-first birthday bash . while living in nyc , you’ve been labeled as being materialistic , but also devoted . i guess being a taurus explains that . 3 things that would paint a better picture of you would be wrists covered in makeup swatches , a perfectly blended halo eye , and never being seen without perfectly manicured nails . ( i once made a fake account to expose information about myself just to get more followers ) & ( cis-female & she / her ) + ( lia , 19 , she / her , cst . )

hello , loves ! it’s me , lia ( i also play margo ) back again with another trash child that i’m hoping you’ll all love as much as i do <33 i first came up w kenna many years ago and haven’t had the opportunity to write for her in a long long time , so i’m really excited to bring her here ! as always , if you wanna plot go ahead and LIKE THIS and i’ll happily come love you down . if discord is more your jam , hmu there too @ 𝐛𝐛𝐧𝐨$𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥#1904 . love y’all !!! 💕💓💕

S T A T S ↴

-- * FULL NAME : mckenna sophia asher -- * NICKNAME(S) : kenna ( preferred name ), kenny , ken , mick -- * AGE : twenty-one -- * D.O.B : may 10th -- * ZODIAC : taurus -- * GENDER : cis-female -- * ORIENTATION : bisexual biromantic -- * HEIGHT : 5″7 -- * NATIONALITY : american ( has dual citizenship in america and wales ) -- * BIRTHPLACE : colwyn bay , wales -- * OCCUPATION : youtuber / makeup artist -- * TRAITS : devoted , ambitious , hard-working , materialistic , stubborn , patient , sensual , reliable , organized , possessive , imbalanced , attention-seeking

B I O G R A P H Y ↴

honestly i am........ too lazy to make this a nice bio so plz forgive me for settling on bullet points ,, but at least that’s less reading for you !!!!

mckenna’s father is from wales and works as a plastic surgeon for the rich and fabulous and her mother is from new york and works a beautician and stylist for celebrities . together they had 5 children in total , the kid in the very middle being kenna . the family spent most of her childhood living in wales before moving to new york just before mckenna started high school

all of her siblings are really talented . it must be in their genes or something to have an affinity for the arts . her older brother is in a popular band . her older sister is a principal dancer . her younger sister is an incredible painter . and her younger brother is like six so he’s still coming into his own but there’s no doubt that he’ll be a prodigy at something

and what about mckenna ??? well she tried following in her brother’s footsteps by learning a bunch of instruments but none of them clicked . after that she tried to take dance classes with her sister but it was clear to see that she had two-left feet . she could barely draw a perfect circle , so painting like her younger sister was out of the question too . eventually she tried to pursue an acting career , auditioning for tv shows and movies but never booking anything more than a handful of commercials

so she spent a majority of her life feeling pretty inadequate compared to her siblings . she just wanted to be good at something , anything really . and she wanted to be praised for it . luckily , she eventually found her thing . though it was sorta unconventional : kenna figured out that she’s good at makeup . it’s basically an art form in itself and since she had the time on her hands to practice , she got pretty good at it

she started posting her looks on social media , gaining a little bit of attention on her instagram and later even starting a youtube channel ( at the time it was called pinkglitter2234 bc she was like 13 and cringey ). doing makeup and making youtube videos was her new favorite pass time and pretty much all she did throughout high school . kids in her school started recognizing her as “the the girl who talks funny and makes youtube videos” ,, so that’s pretty cool ig

it really wasn’t until her senior year that her channel gained a serious following . by the time she graduated she worked her way up to 1m subscribers and just a few hundred thousand away from having 1m on instagram too . CRAZY . and since youtube had become a serious job to her that she wanted to continue doing , she figured that she’d take a gap year off just to focus on that and building her personal brand . so she moved out and got an apartment in the city , paid for all by herself ( though mommy and daddy’s money certainly helped furnish it with all her lavish stuff ) and got to WORK

that ONE gap year turned into a gap... three years ??? she never applied to university and honestly she doesn’t plan to anytime soon ! her social media career has never been more poppin’ tbh . she has like over 8m subscribers on her main channel ( now called makeupmckenna ) and just a little bit under that on her vlog channel . she’s had various partnerships with different makeup brands , colourpopcosmetics , morphe , and lancôme just to name a few . on her channel she also does fashion / styling videos , which has gained her attention from several brands that have sent her pieces to promote and invited her to see their shows at fashion week and whatnot . big money moves basically !!

okay now for her secret : basically ,, kenna is hard-working don’t get me wrong , but she’s also obsessed with increasing her following and is willing to do anything if it means signal boosting herself and becoming more successful . so basically , at one point she made a fake account that posed as one of her “haters” “exposing” her-- and since no publicity is bad publicity , it got more people talking about her and following her . she even made a sob story youtube video in response to the “hate” she was getting and the rumours that were sparking because of it . the account has since been deleted but that doesn’t mean that the screenshots of the rumours aren’t still circulating the internet . it’s been a few years since the “scandal” but that doesn’t mean that it still doesn’t get talked about from time to time

P E R S O N A L I T Y & F U N F A C T S ↴

personality-wise : kenna is a sweetheart ! at least on the outside ! like she lowkey has selfish motives sometimes when it comes to gaining online popularity , but outside of social media she is genuine and goofy and a good friend i swear . would give you the designer clothes off her back if you’re close to her . also affectionate because she’s from a big family that actually has a healthy relationship with each other ( minus kenna’s minor jealousy she used to harbor as a kid... she’s kinda grown out of it now as a young-adult who’s successful in her own right ) so she loves to love . super materialistic though . loves shiny things and owning the newest trendy stuff . definitely thinks that money can buy happiness and she’s super stubborn so you cannot convince her otherwise . loves attention , will do just about anything to get it but if it doesn’t fit her “pristine girl next door” image then she’ll have to do it in secret . and since she has made a name for herself as being “innocent” , she doesn’t party too much . just not a big fan of that lifestyle

just bc she never went to college DOES NOT MEAN that my girl is dumb .. she actually likes to keep learning new things by constantly reading and trying out new skills . she’s v much a jack of all trades but a master at none . minus her ability to beat her face and talk to a camera lol

she’s fluent in both english and welsh , and used to have an accent when she was younger but has since taught herself to sound super american . she thinks it makes her more appealing idk

very family orientated and keeps in close contact with her siblings and parents despite the fact that they live all around the world doing their own things

has collabed with loads of famous peeps not just for youtube videos but getting to do their makeup for gigs . she’s gotten to a point in her career where she’s able to bridge the gap between influencer and professional artist y’know what i mean ??

loves dogs . has a dog named tate who frequently makes appearances in her posts :)))

consumes an unhealthy amount of caffeine daily

doesn’t know how to drive . doesn’t even have a license or anything and who knows if she’ll ever learn tbh

she’s bisexual but has only come out to her close friends and family . hasn’t outwardly said anything to her following but they can probably make assumptions considering who she’s been seen getting close to . like it’s not a big deal to her , she likes who she likes , but also doesn’t think it’s anyone else’s business besides whoever she’s dating / sleeping with at the time

W A N T E D C O N N E C T I O N S ↴

EDIT : i have in fact made a wc page so peep that here if ya want ! xox

#wealthyhq:intro #oh yes MA'AM we are in business now #plz plot w my baby i'll love you forever

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smokeybrandreviews · 4 years

Text

Insincere Sensibilities

I touched upon this a few days ago when i ranted about Outrage and Cancel Culture but, with the current Sentai Filmworks purge over at Crunchyroll, i feel like i need to address this sh*t directly. I think that’s over licensing issues but it’s just a drop in the bucket with all of the other purges and alterations being made, all over the place. American censorship of international media is f*cking ridiculous. It is and i can’t stand it. I get that, for a lot of the youngsters out here, especially the ones that are of that Social Justice disposition, certain things, especially coming out of Japan, can be misconstrued, misunderstood, or even seen as offensive. The thing is, though, mind your f*cking business. Not everyone is outraged by the same sh*t you are. If it’s media to be consumed, just don’t consume it. Not everyone wants to fit in your very narrow worldview of assumed offense and righteous indignation. You look like a clown doing that sh*t. The motherf*cker who sh*ts in the pool, forcing everyone to leave. You’re the no-fun police. Chill the f*ck out, man, and keep your negativity to yourself. F*ck off with your soft ass sensibilities. Instead of harassing a Japanese artist, who lives in Japan, and is actually part of that culture, maybe get some f*cking context first? Maybe understand that, where that person is from, the sh*t they draw is fine and probably popular? Maybe don’t insist upon applying your narrow, prudish, American "values” to a country that, in so many ways, resembles nothing that you’d recognize as everyday life? Like, Amazon removed the Grimgar books. What the f*ck was wrong with Grimgar?? Interestingly enough, you can still watch the show on Prime. That hypocrisy is going to be a running theme, just letting you know ahead of time.

Not everyone who likes lolis wants to f*ck kids. Not everyone who likes guro wants to rape then eat corpses. Not everyone who likes Isekai want’s a slave harem or is some weenie neckbeard that lacks all of the confidence. It’s nuts to me that this current wave of pearl-clutching is so selective. Like, Amazon removed all the No Game No Life novels, among others, because of “questionable content”. A cursory search reveals that you can still buy Catcher in the Rye on the site; A book about a teenage sociopath, who sells drugs and tries to f*ck prostitutes. Dude is sixteen. Shouldn’t this be removed, too? Isn’t this offensive material as well by these new rules? It’s required f*cking reading in high schools across the nation! F*cking A Clockwork Orange is still available, both the book and the film. Why? That sh*t is literally a murder-rape rampage. Dude rapes two ten-year-olds in that sh*t! It’s also another book i read in high school just to see if it was as bad as everyone says. The book is, yes. The film? Not so much. Also, and this is probably the most pertinent of the unabashed hypocrisy on display, f*cking Lolita is still available on Amazon! Both films, hardcover, soft cover, and even the audio book if you’re too lazy to read for yourself. Lolita is quite literally, the inspiration for the loli genre that everyone seems to be completely out of their minds about now. Loli is short FOR Lolita. That’s a thing. You can imagine the content therein so why is THAT book okay but not No Game No Life? The Lolita audio book is f*cking free with an Audible trial! Free! But go off about Shiro, though.

This sh*t is frustrating to me because it feels like a targeted attack on Japanese media and ONLY Japanese media. I got Senators getting on TV, talking about how Dragon Ball Z is degenerate trash, even though it’s been on US television for almost three decades. Sony is prematurely censoring games like Sengan Kagura and Devil May Cry V, but Abby gets a whole ass, grunt filled, bro down, f*ckfest in The Last of Us II. That sh*t was so jarring and hilariously gross to see, it became a straight up meme. Her entire peck-a-titty was completely exposed, nips and all. Her animalistic barking and grimaced face, were so brazenly displayed. Graphically. Gratuitously. Uncomfortably. That sh*t looked painful. That’s what sex is like in real life, right? That interpretation is grounded and not sexualized at all, right. Sex can’t be sexualized anymore. No joy or fun in the f*ck. It has to mechanical and the most unappealing sh*t, ever, or you’ll be objectifying women or some sh*t. Okay. Stunning and brave, I'm sure, but why? Why the f*ck was that necessary other than to wag a finger at your player base? Here’s some f*cking in your game, we know you like it, but don’t like that way. That way is wrong. Women are not cum-dumpsters. They are to be respected and never subject to your pitiable sense of passion or attractiveness. They can be inconvenienced by sex, too! That’s what i thought, at least, as i watched this aggressively icky display happen on my television for a miserable amount of time. It’s this way or no way. I get a lens flare on the butt of a beauty like Lady from DMC, but I'm forced to see Abby’s whole body tense as whatshisname goes in raw with no lube? For real?

There’s just so much stupid surrounding the media i love lately, you know? Let’s go after Shield Hero because I'm offended that Raphtalia is a child slave. Because i only watched three episodes and completely ignored the heartwarming relationship that developed between Naofumi and the adult Raphtalia. Because Raphtalia grew the f*ck up. She only appeared that young, for that long, because Naofumi's trauma wouldn’t allow him to see her as an adult. I’m not saying don’t feel a certain way about whatever but at least get the full picture before you start making ridiculous accusations. Let’s get the pitchforks and torches because Scarlett Johansson is portraying a Japanese cyborg, even though the Japanese don’t care. They’re wrong for being indifferent to the racial injustice perpetrated by this Hollywood production! Even though the character of Batou IS canonically of Japanese descent, not a full cyborg so his body is organic with certain cybernetic enhancements, and still got portrayed by a white dude. Yeah, that’s fine. Ignore the whitewashing of literally every other Japanese or ethnic character in this movie, and focus on the one that is literally a brain in a mechanical shell. Outrage! Did I want to see a Japanese actor in that role? Sure. I think Rinko Kukichi was a perfect fit for Major Motoko Kusanagi. However, the Japanese people don't care so I had to let my bias go. If the director of the original anime film gives his blessing, who the f*ck are we to be so pissed off about it? Plus, the Major in this version of the picture is named Mira or some sh*t. She’s not even MY Major and I can separate the two. Apparently, I am in the minority on that one.

My favorite character in the Monogatari series is Shinobu. She’s a loli vampire that’s nearly six centuries old but looks to be about twelve in real time. Shinobu starts as a ravishing, adult beauty named Kissshot. Through a series of events, her power was sapped and, in order to save her life, she was left in her juvenile form. She later reclaims her voluptuous, mature, appearance and carries on for the rest of the series as such, but she was Shinobu, not Kissshot, when i fell in love with her. I do adore both versions of that character; Her haughty, too-old-for-her-looks, pre-teen self and the reserved, stoic, haunting beauty of her true form. That said, even as a loli vampire, Shinobu is still pretty tame. If Shinobu is worth a Change.org petition, what about Claudia from Interview with the Vampire? Claudia is FAR more problematic. She is Lolita on steroids. Claudia is nine when she was turned and was killed sixty-five years later. It is stated, in detail, she wanted to f*ck. Badly. But she couldn’t because, you know, the whole nine-year-old body and everything. That was actually a pretty big thing with Claudia’s character, the sexual frustration. Never mind the, you know, murderous rage and delight in cruelty, you know? Claudia is fine, with all of her bloody, murderous, psychopathy and manipulative, over-sexual, personality proudly displayed, but Shinobu is an issue because... why again?

Cats are apologizing for violent abusers because they’re pretty women, and you HAVE to believe all women, regardless of the fact that they’re pathological sociopaths. Instead, let’s cancel a child for drawing She-Ra characters “wrong”, even though she drew the G1 versions of said characters, F*ck her, right? Because she liked the designs of the old, problematic, version of that show? It’s on the “wrong side of social justice”. This is a child. One that can’t be more than a decade old but these motherf*ckers came for her, like her last name was Weinstein. It’s kind of hard to take your moral outcry seriously when you’ve directed your hateful intent on a goddamn grade schooler. Sh*t like that, the gross hypocrisy and targeted vitriol, is just f*cking exhausting. You’re entitled to your opinion. Hell, you’re entitled to even voice your opinion out in the wild. The internet is an awesome soapbox. I’m using it right now! As long as the discourse is civil, f*cking go for it. It’s rarely ever civil. Attacking someone because you made assumptions of their character over sh*t they follow on Twatter, is pure folly. Raising the alarm because you don’t like seeing “youthful characters” depicted in a certain light, while ignoring other media that takes it even further but is more palatable or subtle with their transgressions, is hypocrisy. If you’re going to be outraged about something, if you’re going to call for censorship, make sure you censor all of it. If you’re going to hide Japanese boob jiggle, make sure you fade to black with the hard sex in your domestic games, too. I’m as offended by Abby’s body in TLoUII, as you are of Ayane’s from Dead or Alive. Why should i be subjected to your bullsh*t while you curtail and demonize mine? Motherf*ckers want to be champions of tolerance and understanding but these same motherf*ckers sure refuse to understand any point of view obtuse to their own. You want that moral high grown so bad? Then stop picking and choosing what is or isn’t offensive. Either all of it is okay or none of it.

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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I Felt Safe in America. Until El Paso. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/10/opinion/sunday/el-paso-shooting-immigrants.html

Below are two editorial pieces written by Hispanic AMERICANS and their thoughts on America after the El Paso shooting. We CANNOT LET HATE WIN. WE MUST STAND WITH OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

I Felt Safe in America. Until El Paso.

It is because of people like me and my daughter that a gunman did what he did.

By Fernanda Santos, Ms. Santos, a former national correspondent for The Times, teaches journalism at Arizona State University. | Published Aug. 10, 2019 | New York Times | Posted August 10, 2019 |

PHOENIX — A good friend who is moving to Chicago had a going-away party at a downtown brewery recently and I stopped by to say goodbye. He is an artist from Iraq who escaped to the United States in 2013 to save his life. In Iraq, Mahdi Army loyalists had chased, beaten and threatened him because he had dared to sketch nude pictures — practice for his entrance exam at Baghdad University’s College of Fine Arts. Here, he is free.

I wasn’t running from anyone when I settled in the United States 21 years ago, but I understand the idea of being free in America: For me, it has meant being free from the senseless violence of everyday life in Rio de Janeiro, from where I came. Since moving to the United States, I’ve married a white man, given birth to our daughter and moved to Arizona, where I’ve written about immigrants and the border and gotten to know both well.

I blend in seamlessly in Arizona, where about one in three residents is Latino. As a naturalized citizen, I felt safe here even when a campaign against illegal immigrants led by the infamous former sheriff, Joe Arpaio, targeted Latinos. One day after Donald Trump’s election, a man approached me while I spoke Spanish on the phone outside a coffee shop and screamed, “Speak English.” The experience rattled me, but still I felt safe. I did, however, start carrying my passport card in my wallet, just in case.

That sense of safety changed when a young white man opened fire in a Walmart in El Paso last Saturday, making targets out of brown-skinned people. I read the suspect’s manifesto Sunday morning and, for the first time, I did not feel just like an immigrant. I felt like a target. I looked at my 10-year-old daughter eating the chocolate-chip pancakes I’d made and realized that she could be a target too. Citizenship, it turns out, is an illusory shield. In the eyes of that gunman, I am not American but an invader, an instigator. It is because of people like me that he did what he did.

Segregation was codified in this country in the days after Emancipation, when Southern states enacted laws that clamped down on African-Americans’ newly found freedom to vote, own property or attend public schools. But Jim Crow extended beyond the South: It took the Supreme Court to force Arizona to stop requiring voters to take English literacy tests, and that was years after the Voting Rights Act had already banned such tests.

But if legal segregation has largely fallen before court rulings, anti-minority and anti-immigrant attitudes have not. Last month, at a Republican event in Phoenix, State Senator Sylvia Allen, who is white, said, “We’re going to look like South American countries very quickly.” Ms. Allen, who later apologized, blamed it on the fact that white women are not reproducing fast enough and on the immigrants who are “flooding us and flooding us and flooding us and overwhelming us so we don’t have time to teach them the principles of our country.”

Last week, a fund-raising email by the Arizona Republican Party called the arrival of Central Americans at the border to assert their legal right for asylum “an invasion,” echoing language commonly employed by President Trump.

This is the language of white supremacy today: that we must stop immigration because Latinos will distort American culture and replace “real Americans.” But by “American culture” they really mean white culture, a definition that, to them, doesn’t apply to people like me. Or to black people, Muslims, Asian-Americans and many others, including mixed-race Americans like my daughter.

In his manifesto, the El Paso suspect employs this narrow definition to justify the unjustifiable. He says much more in that screed, most of it vile. Some, though, reminded me, in a good way, of the young undocumented immigrants I’ve met in Arizona. “Inaction is not a choice,” he wrote, reminding me that before elections, many young immigrants, including so-called Dreamers, knock on doors and share their stories, hoping to persuade their neighbors to do what they cannot, which is to vote. For those Dreamers, inaction is indeed not a choice.

There are Walmart stores all along the southern border. If you visit one of them on a weekend, you’ll see a parking lot full of cars with Mexican license plates. In Douglas, Ariz., a city whose mayor was born in the Dominican Republic, Mexicans who cross into the United States on foot to buy discounted clothing and housewares leave their Walmart shopping carts at the border crossing.

While I was at a Walmart in Phoenix shopping for school supplies the other day, I could see the kinds of people who make up this state. There were mothers speaking Spanish to children who spoke to one another in English, Muslim refugees from Africa in brightly colored hijabs, black families and white families too.

When school starts later this month in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, one school will be missing its principal, Elsa Mendoza Marquez. She was among the 22 people killed in the El Paso Walmart, just across the Rio Grande from Juarez. A dual Mexican-American citizen, she too was shopping and was gunned down while her husband waited for her outside, in the parking lot.

What the El Paso gunman failed to realize is that the immigrants he so hates are, like him, struggling to make sense of a changing country and claim their rightful place in it. He chose a rifle to claim his place. My Iraqi friend, who is off to pursue a master’s degree in art in Chicago, chose a brush.

The Dreamers I’ve met have chosen the power of civic engagement to fight their fight. And that, to me, makes them better citizens than plenty of the people who call themselves “real Americans” these days.

El Paso Was a Massacre Foretold

Those who are set on killing minorities are aided by the fact that they can easily obtain assault weapons in this country.

By Jorge Ramos, Mr. Ramos is a contributing Opinion writer. | Published Aug. 10, 2019 | New York Times | Posted August 10, 2019 |

Leer en español

EL PASO — “I don’t know why he took my boy’s life,” Dora Lizarde said. Her grandson Javier, 15, was the youngest victim of last weekend’s massacre, killed by a bullet to the head. “Fifteen years old; he still had so much time to live,” Ms. Lizarde told me in an interview this week. “I don’t know why he took him away, I don’t understand. He is young, too.”

Patrick Crusius is young, too.

Police have charged Mr. Crusius, 21, in the mass shooting that killed 22 people at a crowded Walmart here on Aug. 3. Nineteen of the victims had Spanish surnames, making this the worst attack on Latinos in modern American history. The Mexican government has labeled the killings a terrorist act, given that eight Mexican citizens were among the dead. And, yes, it is a hate crime.

The massacre of Latinos in El Paso is the latest and most brutal reaction by a young, white American against a future that might be dominated by minorities. The fact that this attack happened is unsurprising: What else can we expect when racism and hatred of others is promoted from the top down in a country where there are more guns than people?

Authorities have said that Mr. Crusius posted a 2,300-word manifesto online minutes before the attack. In it, he said the attack was in response to a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” “It makes no sense to keep letting millions of illegal or legal immigrants flood into the United States,” Mr. Crusius supposedly wrote, “and to keep the tens of millions that are already here.” Those words startled me — not only because they were so hateful, but because they could seamlessly fit into speeches given by President Trump, by some members of his cabinet and by many right-wing politicians.

While Mr. Trump insists that he does not have “a racist bone” in his body, his history of making racist remarks says otherwise. After years of suggesting that President Barack Obama had not been born in the United States, Mr. Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015 by likening Mexican immigrants to criminals and rapists. He recently said that four congresswomen of color should “go back” to the countries from which they came. The list goes on. When the most powerful man in the world uses such toxic rhetoric, we should not be surprised when others mimic him.

Beto O’Rourke, the former congressman from El Paso and a Democratic presidential candidate, recently told me that he is convinced Mr. Trump influenced the attack. Mr. O’Rourke — who along with Senator Elizabeth Warren, another Democratic candidate for the presidency, has said in recent days that Mr. Trump is a “white supremacist” — responded to a tweet from the president by writing: “22 people in my hometown are dead after an act of terror inspired by your racism.” Other leaders and politicians, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have also lost their patience with Mr. Trump. “I don’t want to hear the question ‘Is this president racist?’ anymore. He is,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said recently.

The president’s xenophobia, and that of many of his supporters and enablers, is rooted in a dread that the day is soon coming when they will be a minority in their country. While non-Hispanic whites remain a majority of the population in the United States, in less than 30 years that may no longer be the case, according to projections. This sort of demographic revolution is putting Americans’ tolerance to the test. Most of us welcome an increasingly diverse country, but many, like Mr. Trump, resist the country’s multiethnic, multicultural future. Some react by walking into a store and murdering innocent people.

The most racist Americans who are set on killing minorities are aided by the fact that they can easily obtain assault weapons in this country. I’ve lost count of all the massacres I’ve covered as a journalist. After each shooting — Columbine, Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, Parkland — I thought we might have reached the limit of Americans’ tolerance for such horror. But it wasn’t so. I fear that the killings in El Paso won’t change anything, and that I soon will be back on another flight headed to cover the next massacre. And then another. And another after that.

I have lost hope that the United States will ever pass laws that limit access to firearms. Like many parents around the country, I’ve had difficult conversations with my children in case they find themselves in a situation where someone is shooting at them. “Try to escape, hide or fight,” I tell them. “But don’t stay still. Gunmen have a lot of bullets, but not patience.”

Still, even if we could somehow solve our gun problem in America, our racism problem would be far more difficult to eradicate. Hate-group activity is on the rise, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. And anti-immigrant rhetoric has already appeared in slogans shouted during the 2020 presidential campaign.

I crossed the border from El Paso to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, one morning this week. For many years, Juárez was considered one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico because of the presence of drug cartels. Yet on this visit some people I spoke with told me that they didn’t dare cross into El Paso with their families. When I asked why, some said that they feared being hunted for being Mexican, and all said that racism was a factor.

Nobody should live in fear because they are Mexican nationals in the United States or members of the Latino community. But that’s where we are now in this United States of Trump. The abundance of weapons of war on the streets and Mr. Trump’s unending racist rhetoric are indisputably connected to the massacre in El Paso. What happened in this city was a massacre foretold. Words matter. When they are filled with hate, they cause great damage.

Mr. Ramos is an anchor for the Univision network and the author of “Stranger: The Challenge of a Latino Immigrant in the Trump Era.”

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cxcfestival · 5 years

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CXC 2019 About Tab On Web Site as of 100719

Our Mission

We hope to provide an international showcase for the best of cartoon art in all its forms, including comics, animation, editorial cartoons, newspaper strips, and beyond, in a city that is a growing center of importance to comics and cartooning. We also focus on helping the next generation of young cartooning talent develop thriving careers that invigorate the industry for years to come.

To do that, we are strive to create an atmosphere of communication and shared enthusiasm between creators and audiences of cartoon storytelling so they can have serious (and fun) discussions on it as art, with the respect their creators deserve, as well as help an emerging generation of young cartooning talent develop careers that are both artistically and economically rewarding.

The Story Behind CXC

Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) is all about making connections between people with a passion for the art of cartoons, and that’s exactly how it all started: a conversation between friends.

As a founder and world-renowned curator of The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, Lucy Shelton Caswell had already helped organize a semi-annual Cartoon Arts Festival in Columbus for many years. She knew it could become more, because she knew so many influential people throughout the city and the industry that shares her passion. But two in particular knew how much support Columbus institutions offered for the cartoon arts: the husband and wife team behind Cartoon Books, Columbus native Jeff Smith and his wife Vijaya Iyer.

The three of them talked about how some cities in Europe would turn themselves over to their comics festivals, and how much each festival would spend a week showing people the best of each city offers the cartoon community, and how first-class treatment of cartooning talent not only brought in industry greats, but created an atmosphere where connections between the creators and fans could be had.

They believed Columbus was a place they could create a truly unique festival experience that could rival anything that had overseas. Being in the heart of the country, it could be the crossroads where museums and art centers, learning institutions and cultural landmarks, industry legends and aspiring creators, as well as professionals and fans could meet to celebrate cartoon storytelling like no other place on Earth.

That day, Cartoon Crossroads Columbus was drawn into existence.

As CXC began to grow, we quickly drew the support of numerous Columbus comics and arts community luminaries, such as Jenny Robb, Jared Gardner, David Filipi, and Caitlin McGurk. Tom Spurgeon joined his friends at CXC as Executive Director, and he quickly began to gather world-class talent and cultivate the programming that would resonate throughout the cartoon world.

Today, CxC is annual festival that spans 4 entire days—and stretches throughout the city. With each year, thousands more people attend the festival events— drawing even more friends and colleagues in the field to come together in support of this one-of-a-kind cartoon festival. CXC continues to do what it originally set out to do: make genuine connections between people who share a love, a passion, and a personal reason to believe in the future of cartoon art.

Thank You to Our Key Sponsors

Cartoon Crossroads Columbus is made possible each year by a wide range of individual donors and corporate sponsors. As a free festival, CXC depends on the practice of giving—and we greatly appreciate the support.

For the 2019 Festival, Cartoon Crossroads Columbus is delighted to say thank you to the following major partners:

Platinum Sponsors ($10,000 or more)

Gold Sponsors ($5,000 or more)

Silver Sponsors ($2,500 or more)

Bronze Sponsors ($1,000 or more)

Individual SponsorsFred & Rebecca Perry Damsen (Gold Sponsors)Jack & Pam Beeler (Gold Sponsors)Jeff & Lucy Caswell (Gold Sponsors)Jeff Smith & Vijaya Iyer (Gold Sponsors)

We appreciate support at all levels for this year’s show, and we thank future sponsors for helping CXC continue for many more years ahead.

Our Key Cast of Characters

Rebecca Perry Damsen, Board President Rebecca Perry Damsen has 30 years of property management and real estate investing experience. She has been co-owner and president of Roger C. Perry & Co. since 1997. She graduated from Smith College in 1987, received her MBA from Indiana University in 1992, and holds a real estate license in the state of Ohio. After graduating from Smith College, she was actively involved in managing multiple condominium sites in the Boston, Massachusetts area as property manager for Saunders & Associates (Now Saunders Real Estate Inc.).

In addition to leading Roger C. Perry & Co., Ms Damsen has been very involved in community and civic service. She is past president of the Columbus Apartment Assocation (CAA), currently a trustee of the CAA, and serves on both the Public Policy Committees and is a past president of the Board of Friends of WOSU Public Media., Ms. Damsen has served on the board of Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) since 2015—helping develop its mission is to celebrate the diversity of the cartoon arts and their creators across genres and forms and to highlight Columbus and its comics community for the world.

Ms. Damsen was elected Board President in Fall 2018.

Tom Spurgeon, Executive Director

Tom Spurgeon is a longtime comics industry journalist. He was editor at The Comics Journalfrom 1994-1999 and has performed a similar function producing the commentary, criticism and news web site The Comics Reporter from 2004 to present. He has won or shared in eight Eisner Awards for his editorial work and writing.

Spurgeon has co-authored two books about comics, Stan Lee And The Rise And Fall Of The American Comic Book (Chicago Review Press, 2003) and We Told You So: Comics As Art(Fantagraphics Books, 2016). He co-wrote the syndicated newspaper strip Wildwood for King Features from 1999-2002.

He has been Executive Director at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus since 2015.

Jeff Smith, Artistic Director Jeff Smith (born February 27, 1960) is an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of the self-published comic book series BONE. Smith solidified the 1990’s Self-Publishing Movement when he joined other self-publishers and launched a new era of independent comics publishing, a movement that captured nearly 20% of the growing comics book market.

In 1993, Smith breathed new life into the Graphic Novel format with The Complete BONE Adventures Volume One: Out From Boneville, which sold an unprecedented 50,000 copies in its first year. BONE won numerous American awards including 10 Eisner Awards and 11 Harveys, as well as European awards from Italy, Germany, and the French Alph Art.

In 2005, BONE was chosen to launch the first graphic novel series for children from a major publishing house, Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic Books.

There have been exhibitions of his work, and in 2009 Smith was the subject of an Emmy Award winning documentary called The Cartoonist: Jeff Smith, BONE, and the Changing Face of Comics.

Later works include critically acclaimed SHAZAM: The Monster Society of Evil, and Little Mouse Gets Ready, a comic for emerging readers that received a Geisel Honor in 2009. In 2013, Smith guest edited The Best American Comics anthology, and released his second major work, RASL, a dark, hard-boiled sci-fi story that focuses on an art thief who hops through dimensional barriers, hiding out on various parallel worlds.

His current projects include the series Tuki, Save The Humans, and a return to the Bone universe with Smiley's Dream Book.

Rebecca Perry Damsen (President)

Lucy Caswell (Vice-President)

Andrew Campbell (Treasurer)

Christian Hoffer (Secretary)

Tom Spurgeon (Executive Director)

Jeff Smith (Artistic Director)

Jack Beeler

Michael S. Brown

Jeff Darbee

Dan Gearino

Jami Goldstein

Scott V. Hoffman

Vijaya Iyer

Matthew Leppert

Rafael Rosado

Board Members

Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum

Columbus College of Art & Design

Columbus Metropolitan Library

Columbus Museum Of Art

Cultural Arts Center

Experience Columbus

Greater Columbus Arts Council

Laughing Ogre Comics

OSU Pop Culture Studies

Short North Alliance

SÕL-CON

The Wexner Center For The Arts

Thurber House

Council Institutions

Keeping CXC Safe

Our Festival Harassment Policy

Cartoon Crossroads Columbus has a ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY for harassment of any kind, including but not limited to:

Stalking; intimidation; abusive behavior; offensive verbal comments; physical assault and/or battery; harassing or non-consensual photography or recording; sustained disruption of speakers, panels, signings, or other events; bathroom policing; inappropriate physical contact; unwelcome attention, in relation to, but not limited to race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, gender presentation, sexual orientation, age, body size, disability, appearance, religion, citizenship, pregnancy, etc.

If anyone sees or experiences harassment or otherwise has questions, please find a CXC staff member, council member, or Board member to provide a full report of the incident.

If a person engages in harassing behavior, CXC personnel will take prompt action in any form they deem appropriate, including expulsion from the event and pursuit of appropriate legal action. We also reserve the right to provide extra manpower and resources to help our attendees feel safe, whatever that may entail.

Our policy applies to EVERYONE at the events. Exhibitors, fans, attendees, speakers, guests, professionals, press, staff, volunteers, and security are all subject to our anti-harassment policy. If you see something, say something.

Volunteering with CXC

Cartoon Crossroads Columbus benefits from the hard work of dozens of volunteers, both during the festival weekend and in the weeks and months before. Volunteers assist everyone from staff to special guests to exhibitors to fans to attending VIPs, helping ensure each group maximizes their CXC weekend.

Contact Xxxxxxx Yyyyyyyyy, our Volunteer Coordinator, for more information at

SÕL-CON: The Brown And Black Comics Expo

What Is SÕL-CON?

SÕL-CON: The Brown And Black Comics Expo, is a comics festival that takes place in Columbus, Ohio concurrently with Cartoon Crossroads Columbus. It focuses on creators with a Latino or African-American background. It was co-founded in 2015 by prominent scholars Frederick Aldama, John Jennings and Ricardo Padilla.

What Is The Relation Of SÕL-CON to CXC?

SÕL-CON exists independently under the greater umbrella of Cartoon Crossroads Columbus. The two shows share resources and information to make sure each runs more smoothly. Starting in 2016, the shows have been exhibiting together on the festival's Saturday and Sunday at the CXC Marketplace And Expo held at the downtown branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library.

Where Is SÕL-CON held?

SÕL-CON holds an opening reception on the OSU campus on the Thursday night of CXC Festival weekend. It runs a full day of programming and exhibiting at OSU's Hale Hall on Friday. Saturday and Sunday, several SÕL-CON exhibitors table with CXC guests at the Columbus Metropolitan Library. In 2017, SÕL-CON will host three panels over the weekend at the library focused on SÕL-CON creators and values.

How Is SÕL-CON different from CXC?

SÕL-CON and CXC are completely different shows that work together to make a greater overall experience for attendees and guests . In addition to the focused approach on creators utilized by SÕL-CON, observers have told CXC organizers they appreciate SÕL-CON's greater emphasis on community-building over business and industry advice.

Where Can I Find Out The Latest On SÕL-CON?

SÕL-CON has its own web presence at the site of OSU's Office Of Diversity And Inclusion. As part of our partnership, CXC will always try to have the most up to date SÕL-CON information on this site, and available via its social media.

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afrikanza · 5 years

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10 Most Influential African Women

Africa has many influential women who have greatly aided in putting Africa on the globe in leadership, business, sports, arts, and other spheres and domains.

Discover more: 10 Richest Black Women in the World

We are going to look at those self-made women who rose to influential position mainly through their own efforts rather than being heirs or beneficiaries of undue favors. Here we go!

10. Lupita Nyog’o – Kenya

Lupita Nyong’o is an Oscar-winning actress who came to fame due to her role in the “12 Years A Slave”. She is the first Kenyan actress to have won an Oscar Academy Award in Film and Theater.

She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, in this film in 2013. She has also acted in several films, including East River, My Genes, Steve McQueen’s, Star Wars, The Jungle Book, and lately, Black Panthers.

She has been an inspiration for African women interested in entering the entertainment industry. Apart from acting, she has been an inspiration to women who would like to keep their appearance as natural as possible.

Unlike most African female stars in the entertainment industry, she has not had the urge to bleach her skin. This has led her to appear in several international magazines as an “authentic African woman.” We know, sad but true.

9. Salwa Akhannouch – Morocco

Salwa Akhannouch is a leading Moroccan female entrepreneur. She is not only one of the most influential African women but also one of the most influential Arabic women.

Her great influence emanates from her entrepreneurial prowess. She is the head of Akwa Group which specializes in fashion brands. She owns the exclusive franchise rights in Morocco for brands such as Zara, Gap, and Banana Republic.

She is also into real estate with an impressive portfolio. Through her enterprises, she has a 50% holding stakes in Morocco Mall – a prestigious mall that is Africa’s largest. The mall attracts over 50 million visitors from across the globe with key clientele coming from Africa, Europe and Asia.

8. Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu – Ethiopia

Founder of soulRebels, Bethlehem Alemu is a household name in Ethiopia. She cut out her niche in the soles of the African shoes – making shoes out of recycled materials.

soulRebels is largely a social enterprise that not only generates profits but also helps to sustain a clean environment through recycling of materials that would have otherwise added to the increasing mountain of garbage in Addis Ababa and characteristic of most African cities.

Further, than that, soulRebels has helped relieve the acute unemployment crisis is Ethiopia by providing income opportunities to those living in poor slums of Addis Ababa. Thus, through her enterprise, she has profitably participated in alleviating poverty.

As Ethiopia’s un-announced cultural ambassador, Bethlehem Alemu, she has promoted Ethiopia’s traditional shoes, namely, “selate” and “barabasso” to international fame by adding to them a stylish dose of modern appeal.

Her ingenious entrepreneurship has led her to establish international stores in many parts of the world, including Switzerland, Taiwan, and Singapore.

7. Caster Semenya – South Africa

Born in 1991, in South Africa, Caster Semenya is a world-renowned athlete. She has won several international medals in athletics, including the most prestigious one – 800m Olympic Gold Medal.

Semenya began her international athletics career in 2008 by participating in 2008 World Junior Championship which she successfully won a gold medal in the 800m race.

In 2009 African Junior Championships, she won a double – 800m gold medal, and 1500m gold medal. She participated in several other international races, capping it up with 2012 Olympic Gold Medal. Her latest great win was in 2017 World Championships in London where she won gold in 800m race.

Caster Semenya has survived all odds when it comes to controversies surrounding her rather successful and exemplary performance in athletics. Some have questioned her gender and even damaging rumors on her personal life which would have otherwise caused great mental, emotional and psychological anguish to many haven’t deterred her.

6. Divine Ndhlukula – Zimbabwe

Divine Ndhlukula was born in Gatu, Zimbabwe. She is one of Zimbabwe’s most celebrated women entrepreneurs. She is the founder and CEO of Securico Security Services.

She entered this male-dominated field by offering customized security services. Due to her exemplary corporate and social leadership, she stands as one of Zimbabwe’s the most decorated women leaders, if not the most.

She has won over 18 Awards both local and international with regard to leadership, entrepreneurship, mentoring, and philanthropy.

5. Ama Ata Aidoo – Ghana

Ama Ata Aidoo has had an influence on Africa spanning over 50 years. She was born in 1942 in Ghana. As a playwright, author, and academician, Aidoo has inspired not only African women but also men in the world of literature, drama, and poetry.

Apart from being an accomplished author, poet, playwright, and academician, Aidoo has also participated in public service as a Minister for Education under the fourth government of Jerry Rawlings.

As an academician, Aidoo has served in many universities straddling Africa, America, and Europe. She has written many pieces of literary works that have continued to impart knowledge to millions across Africa.

She has over a dozen pieces of such works in her name. The Dilemma of A Ghost being her debut piece and Diplomatic Pounds & Other Stories, being her latest. At, 76 years of age, she still finds the energy to continue mentoring young African women through her Mbaasem Foundation.

4. Folorunsho Alakija – Nigeria

Billed as Nigeria’s richest woman, Folorunsho Alakija was born in 1951 in Nigeria. She worked in many companies before beginning her entrepreneurial journey. Her entrepreneurial debut was Supreme Stitches, a tailoring company. Later on, it became Roses of Sharon House of Fashion, which became a national brand.

Later on, Folorunsho ventured into the lucrative oil industry by applying for prospecting license in 1993. She carried oil prospecting under the flagship company, Famfa Limited. Later on, after oil discoveries, she converted from prospecting into mining.

Apart from entrepreneurship, she has also participated in the academic field having become the first Nigerian woman to be a Chancellor of a university. She achieved this by becoming the Chancellor of Osun State University.

She is one of Nigeria’s leading women philanthropists as well as the Chief Matron of Africa’s Young Entrepreneurs.

3. Sahle-Work Zewde – Ethiopia

Sahle-Work Zewde has broken history to become Ethiopia’s first female president. This is a big fete considering that Ethiopia is a predominantly patriarchal society. She has thus broken the ceiling to inspire not only Ethiopian women, but African women at large.

Sahle-Work was unanimously elected by Ethiopia’s Federal Parliamentary Assembly to take up this coveted position. She had previously worked in diplomatic circles as UN Special Representative to the African Union (AU).

She has also served in various other ambassadorial positions including Djibouti, IGAD, UNESCO, and ECA (Economic Commission for Africa).

2. Fatou Bom Bensouda – Gambia

Born in 1961 in the Gambia, Fatou Bom Bensouda is the most influential woman from this tiny West African country.

Bensouda has served in various public capacities both locally, regionally and internationally. Currently, she is the second Prosecutor General of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the first and only woman to have held that position.

She also served as Gambia’s first female Attorney General and Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs. Prior to her appointment at ICC, she worked as Legal Adviser and Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

1. Dr. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Nigeria

Dr. Adichie is a writer and novelist. She was born in Nigeria, in 1977.

She is an acclaimed feminist renowned for her speech “We Should All Be Feminists”, delivered on TED program. She has won about a dozen prized Awards in by various literary organizations including Caine, Booker, PEN, Orange, among others.

Some of her great literary works include Purple Hibiscus, Half of A Yellow Sun, The Thing Around Your Kneck, among others.

She was inspired by Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and considers him her literary mentor. She hasn’t disappointed her mentor. She too has become a mentor not only to young and upcoming female talents but also to male talents.

Conclusion

When it comes to the most influential women, Africa shines on the global scene. It has powerful influential women across various professional, entrepreneurial, artistic, sports, political, and leadership domains.

They compete effectively with women across the world. They have contributed to raising Africa’s profile, even in domains that their male counterparts have been dwarfed. They are the true spirit of Africa’s 21st Century renaissance.

Discover more: 10 African Social Entrepreneurs – Proudly Leading Africa’s Transformation

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What is Design Thinking and Why Is It So Popular?

Original Article: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/what-is-design-thinking-and-why-is-it-so-popular

Design Thinking is not an exclusive property of designers—all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering, and business have practiced it. So, why call it Design Thinking? What’s special about Design Thinking is that designers’ work processes can help us systematically extract, teach, learn and apply these human-centered techniques to solve problems in a creative and innovative way – in our designs, in our businesses, in our countries, in our lives.

Some of the world’s leading brands, such as Apple, Google, Samsung and GE, have rapidly adopted the Design Thinking approach, and Design Thinking is being taught at leading universities around the world, including d.school, Stanford, Harvard and MIT. But do you know what Design Thinking is? And why it’s so popular? Here, we’ll cut to the chase and tell you what it is and why it’s so in demand.

What is Design Thinking?

Design Thinking is an iterative process in which we seek to understand the user, challenge assumptions, and redefine problems in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding. At the same time, Design Thinking provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It is a way of thinking and working as well as a collection of hands-on methods.

Design Thinking revolves around a deep interest in developing an understanding of the people for whom we’re designing the products or services. It helps us observe and develop empathy with the target user. Design Thinking helps us in the process of questioning: questioning the problem, questioning the assumptions, and questioning the implications. Design Thinking is extremely useful in tackling problems that are ill-defined or unknown, by re-framing the problem in human-centric ways, creating many ideas in brainstorming sessions, and adopting a hands-on approach in prototyping and testing. Design Thinking also involves ongoing experimentation: sketching, prototyping, testing, and trying out concepts and ideas.

Design Thinking’s Phases

There are many variants of the Design Thinking process in use today, and they have from three to seven phases, stages, or modes. However, all variants of Design Thinking are very similar. All variants of Design Thinking embody the same principles, which were first described by Nobel Prize laureate Herbert Simon in The Sciences of the Artificial in 1969. Here, we will focus on the five-phase model proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, which is also known as d.school. We’ve chosen d.school’s approach because they’re at the forefront of applying and teaching Design Thinking. The five phases of Design Thinking, according to d.school, are as follows:

Empathise – with your users

Define – your users’ needs, their problem, and your insights

Ideate – by challenging assumptions and creating ideas for innovative solutions

Prototype – to start creating solutions

Test – solutions

It is important to note that the five phases, stages, or modes are not always sequential. They do not have to follow any specific order and can often occur in parallel and repeat iteratively. Given that, you should not understand the phases as a hierarchal or step-by-step process. Instead, you should look at it as an overview of the modes or phases that contribute to an innovative project, rather than sequential steps.

Author/Copyright holder: Pixabay. Copyright terms and licence: Free to Use

To help you understand Design Thinking, we have broken the process into five phases or modes, which are: 1. Empathise, 2. Define, 3. Ideate, 4. Prototype, and 5. Test. What’s special about Design Thinking is that designers’ work processes can help us systematically extract, teach, learn, and apply these human-centered techniques to solve problems in a creative and innovative way – in our designs, in our businesses, in our nations (and eventually, if things go really well, beyond), in our lives. Nevertheless, a great artist like Auguste Rodin, who created this famous sculpture called “The Thinker” and originally “Le Penseur”, would most likely have used the very same innovative processes in his artwork. In the same way, all great innovators in literature, art, music, science, engineering and business have practiced it and still practice it.

The Problem with Ingrained Patterns of Thinking

Sometimes, the easiest way to understand something intangible, such as Design Thinking, is by understanding what it is not.

Humans naturally develop patterns of thinking modeled on repetitive activities and commonly accessed knowledge. These assist us in quickly applying the same actions and knowledge in similar or familiar situations, but they also have the potential to prevent us from quickly and easily accessing or developing new ways of seeing, understanding and solving problems. These patterns of thinking are often referred to as schemas, which are organized sets of information and relationships between things, actions and thoughts that are stimulated and initiated in the human mind when we encounter some environmental stimuli. A single schema can contain a vast amount of information. For example, we have a schema for dogs which encompasses the presence of four legs, fur, sharp teeth, a tail, paws, and a number of other perceptible characteristics. When the environmental stimuli match this schema — even when there is a tenuous link or only a few of the characteristics are present — the same pattern of thought is brought into the mind. As these schemas are stimulated automatically, this can obstruct a more fitting impression of the situation or prevent us from seeing a problem in a way that will enable a new problem-solving strategy. Innovative problem solving is also known as “thinking outside of the box”.

An Example of Problem solving: The Encumbered Vs. The Fresh Mind

Thinking outside of the box can provide an innovative solution to a sticky problem. However, thinking outside of the box can be a real challenge as we naturally develop patterns of thinking that are modeled on the repetitive activities and commonly accessed knowledge we surround ourselves with.

Some years ago, an incident occurred where a truck driver tried to pass under a low bridge. But he failed, and the truck was lodged firmly under the bridge. The driver was unable to continue driving through or reverse out.

The story goes that as the truck became stuck, it caused massive traffic problems, which resulted in emergency personnel, engineers, firefighters and truck drivers gathering to devise and negotiate various solutions for dislodging the trapped vehicle.

Emergency workers were debating whether to dismantle parts of the truck or chip away at parts of the bridge. Each spoke of a solution which fitted within his or her respective level of expertise.

A boy walking by and witnessing the intense debate looked at the truck, at the bridge, then looked at the road and said nonchalantly, "Why not just let the air out of the tires?" to the absolute amazement of all the specialists and experts trying to unpick the problem.

When the solution was tested, the truck was able to drive free with ease, having suffered only the damage caused by its initial attempt to pass underneath the bridge. The story symbolizes the struggles we face where oftentimes the most obvious solutions are the ones hardest to come by because of the self-imposed constraints we work within.

It’s often difficult for us humans to challenge our assumptions and everyday knowledge, because we rely on building patterns of thinking in order to not have to learn everything from scratch every time. We rely on doing everyday processes more or less unconsciously — for example, when we get up in the morning, eat, walk, and read — but also when we assess challenges at work and in our private lives. In particular, experts and specialists rely on their solid thought patterns, and it can be very challenging and difficult for experts to start questioning their knowledge.

The Power of Storytelling

Why did we tell you this story? Telling stories can help us inspire opportunities, ideas and solutions. Stories are framed around real people and their lives. Stories are important because they are accounts of specific events, not general statements. They provide us with concrete details that help us imagine solutions to particular problems. While we’re at it, please watch this 1-minute video to help you get started understanding what Design Thinking is about.

Design Thinking is often referred to as ‘outside the box’ thinking. This child shows us why it’s important to challenge our assumptions and find new ways to solve our problems.

Design Thinking or 'Outside the Box' Thinking

Design Thinking is often referred to as ‘outside the box’ thinking, as designers are attempting to develop new ways of thinking that do not abide by the dominant or more common problem-solving methods.

At the heart of Design Thinking is the intention to improve products by analyzing and understanding how users interact with products and investigating the conditions in which they operate. At the heart of Design Thinking lies also the interest and ability to ask significant questions and challenging assumptions. One element of outside the box thinking is to falsify previous assumptions – i.e., to make it possible to prove whether they are valid or not. Once we have questioned and investigated the conditions of a problem, the solution-generation process will help us produce ideas that reflect the genuine constraints and facets of that particular problem. Design Thinking offers us a means of digging that bit deeper; it helps us to do the right kind of research and to prototype and test our products and services so as to uncover new ways of improving the product, service or design.

Grand Old Man of User Experience, Don Norman, who also coined the very term User Experience, explains what Design Thinking is and what’s so special about it:

“…the more I pondered the nature of design and reflected on my recent encounters with engineers, business people and others who blindly solved the problems they thought they were facing without question or further study, I realized that these people could benefit from a good dose of design thinking. Designers have developed a number of techniques to avoid being captured by too facile a solution. They take the original problem as a suggestion, not as a final statement, then think broadly about what the real issues underlying this problem statement might really be (for example by using the "Five Whys" approach to get at root causes). Most important of all, is that the process is iterative and expansive. Designers resist the temptation to jump immediately to a solution to the stated problem. Instead, they first spend time determining what the basic, fundamental (root) issue is that needs to be addressed. They don't try to search for a solution until they have determined the real problem, and even then, instead of solving that problem, they stop to consider a wide range of potential solutions. Only then will they finally converge upon their proposal. This process is called "Design Thinking." – Don Norman, Rethinking Design Thinking

Design Thinking is an Essential Tool – and A Third Way

The design process often involves a number of different groups of people in different departments; for this reason, developing, categorizing, and organizing ideas and problem solutions can be difficult. One way of keeping a design project on track and organizing the core ideas is using a Design Thinking approach.

Tim Brown, CEO of the celebrated innovation and design firm IDEO, shows in his successful book Change by Design that Design Thinking is firmly based on generating a holistic and empathic understanding of the problems that people face, and that it involves ambiguous or inherently subjective concepts such as emotions, needs, motivations, and drivers of behaviors. This contrasts with a solely scientific approach, where there’s more of a distance in the process of understanding and testing the user’s needs and emotions — e.g., via quantitative research. Tim Brown sums up that Design Thinking is a third way: Design Thinking is essentially a problem-solving approach, crystalized in the field of design, which combines a holistic user-centered perspective with rational and analytical research with the goal of creating innovative solutions.

“Design thinking taps into capacities we all have but that are overlooked by more conventional problem-solving practices. It is not only human-centered; it is deeply human in and of itself. Design thinking relies on our ability to be intuitive, to recognize patterns, to construct ideas that have emotional meaning as well as functionality, to express ourselves in media other than words or symbols. Nobody wants to run a business based on feeling, intuition, and inspiration, but an overreliance on the rational and the analytical can be just as dangerous. The integrated approach at the core of the design process suggests a ‘third way.’ “ – Tim Brown, Change by Design, Introduction

Science and Rationality in Design Thinking

Some of the scientific activities will include analyzing how users interact with products and investigating the conditions in which they operate: researching user needs, pooling experience from previous projects, considering present and future conditions specific to the product, testing the parameters of the problem, and testing the practical application of alternative problem solutions. Unlike a solely scientific approach, where the majority of known qualities, characteristics, etc. of the problem are tested so as to arrive at a problem solution, Design Thinking investigations include ambiguous elements of the problem to reveal previously unknown parameters and uncover alternative strategies.

After arriving at a number of potential problem solutions, the selection process is underpinned by rationality. Designers are encouraged to analyze and falsify these problem solutions so that they can arrive at the best available option for each problem or obstacle identified during each phase of the design process.

With this in mind, it may be more correct to say that Design Thinking is not about thinking outside of the box, but on its edge, its corner, its flap, and under its barcode, as Clint Runge put it.

Clint Runge is Founder and Managing Director of Archrival, a distinguished youth marketing agency, and adjunct Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Generating Creative Ideas and Solutions by Holistically Understanding Humans

With a solid foundation in science and rationality, Design Thinking seeks to generate a holistic and empathetic understanding of the problems that people face. Design thinking tries to empathize with human beings. That involves ambiguous or inherently subjective concepts such as emotions, needs, motivations, and drivers of behaviors. The nature of generating ideas and solutions in Design Thinking means this approach is typically more sensitive to and interested in the context in which users operate and the problems and obstacles they might face when interacting with a product. The creative element of Design Thinking is found in the methods used to generate problem solutions and insights into the practices, actions, and thoughts of real users.

Design Thinking is an Iterative and Non-linear Process

Design Thinking is an iterative and non-linear process. This simply means that the design team continuously use their results to review, question and improve their initial assumptions, understandings and results. Results from the final stage of the initial work process inform our understanding of the problem, help us determine the parameters of the problem, enable us to redefine the problem, and, perhaps most importantly, provide us with new insights so we can see any alternative solutions that might not have been available with our previous level of understanding.

Design Thinking is for Everybody

Tim Brown also emphasizes that Design Thinking techniques and strategies of design belong at every level of a business. Design thinking is not only for designers but also for creative employees, freelancers, and leaders who seek to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization, product or service in order to drive new alternatives for business and society.

“Design thinking begins with skills designers have learned over many decades in their quest to match human needs with available technical resources within the practical constraints of business. By integrating what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable, designers have been able to create the products we enjoy today. Design thinking takes the next step, which is to put these tools into the hands of people who may have never thought of themselves as designers and apply them to a vastly greater range of problems.” – Tim Brown, Change by Design, Introduction

Design Thinking is essentially a problem-solving approach, crystallized in the field of design, which combines a user-centered perspective with rational and analytical research with the goal of creating innovative solutions.

The Take Away

Design Thinking is essentially a problem-solving approach specific to design, which involves assessing known aspects of a problem and identifying the more ambiguous or peripheral factors that contribute to the conditions of a problem. This contrasts with a more scientific approach where the concrete and known aspects are tested in order to arrive at a solution. Design Thinking is an iterative process in which knowledge is constantly being questioned and acquired so it can help us redefine a problem in an attempt to identify alternative strategies and solutions that might not be instantly apparent with our initial level of understanding. Design Thinking is often referred to as ‘outside the box thinking’, as designers are attempting to develop new ways of thinking that do not abide by the dominant or more common problem-solving methods – just like artists do. At the heart of Design Thinking is the intention to improve products by analyzing how users interact with them and investigating the conditions in which they operate. Design Thinking offers us a means of digging that bit deeper to uncover ways of improving user experiences.

“The ‘Design Thinking’ label is not a myth. It is a description of the application of well-tried design process to new challenges and opportunities, used by people from both design and non-design backgrounds. I welcome the recognition of the term and hope that its use continues to expand and be more universally understood, so that eventually every leader knows how to use design and design thinking for innovation and better results.” – Bill Moggridge, co-founder of IDEO, in Design Thinking: Dear Don

References & Where to Learn More

Hero Image: Copyright holder: Interaction Design Foundation. Copyright terms and license: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Course: Design Thinking - The Beginner's Guide: https://www.interaction-design.org/courses/design-thinking-the-beginner-s-guide

Don Norman. “Rethinking Design Thinking”, 2013: http://www.core77.com/posts/24579/rethinking-design-thinking-24579

Tim Brown, Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation Introduction, 2009

Bill Moggridge, “Design Thinking: Dear Don”, 2010: http://www.core77.com/posts/17042/design-thinking-dear-don-17042

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