Donald Craig Manuel As Javert 19 august 2023

The National

Cannes review: The Apprentice avoids Trump caricature, but only scratches the surface

Iranian-Danish director Ali Abbasi's follow-up to Holy Spider is a compelling but underwhelming take on the divisive US president's early years

James Mottram

May 20, 2024

Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, The Apprentice is arguably one of the most intriguing films in the official competition. A biopic of Donald Trump, it covers his real estate years before he turned to politics and entered the White House as one of the most controversial presidents in living memory.

Sebastian Stan, the Marvel star who is becoming increasingly diverse in his output of late, plays Trump. He avoids acting out a caricature, even if the script sometimes can’t resist an attack on Trump's vanity (“your face looks like an orange”, cries his wife Ivana, played by Maria Bakalova, the Oscar-nominated star of the Borat sequel).

Directed by the Iranian-Danish filmmaker Ali Abbasi, who has already brought us the unusual fable Border (2018) and the Iranian serial killer drama Holy Spider (2022), this marks a considerable step-up in scale and ambition. Spanning the 70s and 80s, Abbasi and his team capture the ugliness of New York, “the greatest city in the world”, back in the day.

Early on, a passer-by on the street tries to offer his wife to Trump, as the film briefly feels like one of those scenes in Taxi Driver where Travis Bickle surveys the human flotsam and jetsam passing him by.

An ambitious real estate developer, when the story picks up, Trump feels he can do more to modernise the Big Apple than anyone else, scattering the landscape with places like the Grand Hyatt and the famed Trump Tower.

But, as suggested by the title (a nod to the entrepreneurial reality TV show Trump would later front), he needs help. Enter Roy Cohn (Succession’s Jeremy Strong), an impossibly well-connected attorney who has famous clients and seemingly can help Trump’s family company, with a potentially damaging legal issue with the NAACP.

Shaping Trump, as he tells him the three main rules of business (maxims like “admit nothing, deny everything”), Cohn is a persuasive figure, superbly performed by Strong in a role that’ll likely get compared to his Succession character Kendall Roy. But inevitably Trump outgrows his mentorship, as fame and success swells.

At one point he meets Andy Warhol, blithely unaware of who the pop culture icon is. “Making money is art,” he tells the artist, and it’s this that seems to characterise Gabriel Sherman’s script, showing how Trump likes nothing more than striking deals and being a winner.

As such, his resentment for weak individuals around him festers, including his substance-abusing brother Freddy, Cohn and the ex-model-turned-interior-designer Ivana, who he spends most of the time disparaging for her cosmetic surgery (which he encouraged).

There is one shocking scene where he forces himself upon her, an alleged assault that was first reported in Harry Hurt III’s book Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald Trump. The only thing he cares about is courting America, “a country that has tremendous potential”, and building an ever-expanding empire.

Of course the film nods to Trump’s White House years, as he fondles a pin badge from Ronald Reagan’s campaign promising to “make America great again”. But while it’s an exciting watch, boasting an energetic feel and a soundtrack that includes Pet Shop Boys, New Order and Baccara, it arguably only surface skims Trump.

Perhaps we can never really get inside a man who plays so fast and loose with the truth, but the film gradually runs out of steam in the second half, despite showing what a ruthless and venal character he can be. In the end, it’s a story about the manifestation of horrifying ambition, and for that, it’s to be applauded.

Updated: May 20, 2024, 2:46 PM

THE APPRENTICE

Starring: Sebastian Stan, Maria Bakalova, Jeremy Strong

Director: Ali Abbasi

Rating: 3/5

Is a huge war between pseudo empire and the morlock and partially the clothes and everyone's fighting the clones. Here in Charlotte county they're going to have it and very hard and they're taking each other out and they hate each other there's a giant number of them that have died in the past hour it's from the Battle of the rings and the battle inside Charlotte county today they said we don't want to fight each other and all this crap and they go at it and they really do and they're a bunch of morons and say so much stuff out loud spells and They do not work. Donald Trump is a egotist a madman and a loser all at the same time he's going down in flames now he's saying things on TV his issuing statements to groups including the media he's telling his own people to screw he's getting caught by almost everybody and he is also going to jail they said it in court your behavior is criminal and they keep saying it too you're acting like a criminal right now they're saying in court to the president out loud and they're trying to stop him from being this blithering a****** you see everywhere he's making public statements and threats and people are bringing him to court there's four new lawsuits from yesterday's rants and there's 10 that came up on the past two weeks and he can't handle the pressure and he keeps on putting on himself with half as many and they're going to suffer for what they're doing here we don't want you here annoying him enough and it is painful and the people connected to you and die including Max and foreigners who are having a stupid s*** done. And they're falling it's a huge conflict too between the warlock and the pseudo empire and they're actually morlock and idiots for doing it. Now BJ ain't talking about 200 million chips from Stan. And there are a lot of things happening but Stan is on the warpath and he can't stand the guy and nobody can is looking for an excuse and he found one bja at his front door and we mean it too he's bothering him in his house and chasing him around he's a little f**** and they're going at it and bja is trying to take the big stuff and he really needs it and he needs the ground bases and they're on like full attack you start taking a bunch of stuff and death star is trying to hit the ground base that they take and Stan is still got I think it says around 10% and threatening the chips to take them they hit like 4500 and several big ones and that's like 10% so they move over to destroy the place and they can't get a shot off and the thing heats up and it's a bunch of them and then they come in real fast and they heat it up too much and blew up that's what happens and it's coming up probably within the next few days and a lot of them will be dead completely incinerated and others will be partially there's a bunch of movies that happened before and it's 3 or 4 days finally he becomes general grievous rather soon and dies and Dan becomes singe and dies. And there you moved out of the house shortly apparently. But that war is going to heat up and between bja and Stan because of today's battle and a lot of other things the other two are not doing great and Biden has taken his they're not really following orders and if they do this crappy and they're going after the head guys computers right now they can see what it's doing. That's what they say. Get a like about a hundred million chips and now he has 50 million that's not bad his bases are cut in half and the ones that operational are at 50%. McDonald's are still kind of going but they lost half their fleet and it down to about 300 million ships and they're down about 30% of the large stuff and look at their asses kicked and the empire starts trying to take diamonds now they have about four 10,000 mi that stars that's what the four and will push people here to invite in fight

There's a lot more happening but these are the highlights and it's very important it's huge this news above is gigantic and Star wars begins and they go after a stand and they go after bja and each other and it's a nightmare and they're still going after the three and right now the rings are devastated up to including the 18th and after that they're only about 50 mi away and at the closest flight and they're still proceeding with a good size Force and the ships are added they're trying to get here and they're fighting and Stan had to pull out

Thor Freya

Fairly soon Stan will fall and he becomes Obi-Wan Kenobi is then cut in half comes back as obi won. And finally kills Trump. This is very strange his end is very strange he's fighting in Pennsylvania it looks like he gets the empire but it could be clothes and his dad answer possible

Don't read unless you have watched the new episode. But the whole time I watched it I was thinking how it pretty wild that your comic and the episode are basically the same.

 OK I HAVE FINALLY WATCHED THE EPISODE AND BOY WHOO HOO HOWDY I’M GONNA INCLUDE MY THOUGHTS UNDER THE CUT BECAUSE I KNOW A FEW OTHERS HAVE YET TO SEE IT AS WELL AND I DON’T WANT TO SPOIL ANYTHING BUT WHOO LETS GO BABES

SO first off I’m just gonna say that I LOVED the episode. Really and truly honestly I did.  I don’t think there were any major things that I didn’t like tbh. It was such a truthfully wholesome episode. And I’m actually happy with the amount of screen time we got with Scrooge and his insight with Christmas. 

HOWEVER. I wish it was a 45-minute special. Because I think we could have absolutely dived MUCH deeper into the relationship between 1) Younger Donald and Dewey and 2) (the most important) DONALD AND DELLA. I mean like HOLY SHIT. I have to collect my thoughts together really quick cause I’m gonna explode just going on about the sibling relationship going on there so let me backtrack really quick and start from the beginning.

First and foremost. The set up to the episode was great. The kids getting ready for Christmas. Webby’s little hug to Huey and Huey’s patient little smile back to her. Louie’s X-mas list and his “let me explain”, like yes my son, own it. Donald being his best dad self, decorating and STILL playing guitar and singing awful carols at the top of his lungs like, we stan a good good duck dad!!! Literally, everyone is top notch just being great! 

Then we get to plot. The ghosts are back in town. And they’re ready to get down and dirty and party and I LIVE for the idea that they were originally looking for a different Scrooge and that OUR Scrooge actually LOVES Christmas (And I’m so glad that we still don’t know why Scrooge has beef with Santa cause like, that’s potential for future X-Mas episodes and I’m all about having more mysteries to look forward to alright?) So we get it. Party on Scrooge lets go back in time!!!

So we’re 12 minutes in, more Scrooge stuff happens (Which I adore. Love that they brought back Goldy. Love that Young Scrooge is so passive about seeing Old Scrooge. LOVE that BEAKLY fucking FLIRTS with the GRIM REAPER SKJD;S GET IT GIRL LOVE THAT) And super double plot twist is that little jimmy cricket over here is actually like, kinda evil? Well not evil, but he’s a little-twisted buddy, which isn’t his fault, but he just wants to party and feels like everyone abandons him when once they find the true meaning of Christmas (being with family) Which Scrooge does. Which also, can we appreciate how fast it takes for Scrooge to be like, yeah I’m bored of this adventure stuff, can I just go home to my family now? It may have just been the episode time frame but IDK man, I feel like he’s growing from once being bitter to becoming that good old family man again. Good, good old man, I love him. 

ANYWAY- NOW LETS GET DOWN TO THE JUICY HALF OF THE EPISODE AND THE HALF THE EVERYONE WANTS MORE OF INCLUDING MYSELF

OK So here we see Dewey hitch a ride on grims cloak and fall into let’s say around 25+ years in the past. The FIRST thing I noticed and the first shot we get is a mere parallel to the one we see when Scrooge first falls in the past. Its a shot of the mansion. But as opposed to the shot where Scrooge falls during a Christmas where his mansion is LIT the fuck up with lights and sounds and color and LIFE, Dewey sees it dark and practically dead, but still recognizably the Mc’Duck Mansion. One of the next shots we see takes place inside, and we see the mansion (remember this duck is a billionaire) with the wallpaper peeling and the walls cracking and hardly lit and it looks absolutely deserted and kinda uncared for which BREAKS MY HEART OK!!! 

(But I’m so glad I at least got the scene right where Dewey’s first interaction with Donald is through his music and that Dewey could guess it was Donald through his Voice™!!! Also, should have thought of Bluey. That was SO much better than Deuteronomy. But oh well! Got the fake family part right! And the fact that Donald knew she was out back looking fo Santa and was trying to catch Santa for Scrooge. That last part wasn’t in the comic, but that was going to be the original idea for part 4 and FUCK YEAH I WAS ON A ROLL)

And ohhhh when Donald says this is the most confusing family! Ouufff that hit me so hard!!! Cause like, honestly, in canon, Donald is SO proud of his heritage and family line. He’s the only Disney character to really even HAVE a family tree, are you kidding me?

Also Dewey just Yeeting himself out a window with Donald’s guitar as Leverage was such a good idea I wish I would have thought of it and I’m SO ANGRY that I didn’t but I guess if I had then technically I would have been a mind reader or actually stealing from the show so good job me for NOT doing that but I at least got them Escaping out the window part down so WOOP FOR that!

ALSO DONALD JUST STRAIGHT UP LICKING THE TREE! WONDERFUL GOOD BOY AND LIKE!!! AND LIKE!!! OK I kinda played around with the idea that Donald kinda just does stuff without explanation and when someone asks we gives off these weird oneliners that don’t really answer the question of WHY he did/was doing the thing in the first place is something I absolutely live for and both his interactions within my comic and in the show are so parallel with one another that I’m actually mind freaked right now I want to scream I fucking love these kids ok?!?!?

So I could probably live for the next 30 years off of just Dewey and Donald just talking to each other like, it was probably only 40 seconds of conversation, but I lived for every second like it was the only thing that mattered!!! Just Dewey being so Hecking Excited to learn more about Della from someone willing to talk to him without any trauma™ and I LOVED how Donald never outrightly admitted that Della wasn’t Amazing or Awesome (Dewey said it at least twice when referring to Della) and just changed the subject. Like, true sibling love. (I would have also accepted if he had called her a nerd or a geek or something similar because they are siblings after all, like jeezus the whole episode was mostly about their fight like, anything is great, give me them sibling dynamics)

OK AND THEN THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

DELLA MY SWEET BABY GIRL APPEARS AND SHE IS MY EVERYTHING

OK honestly I was gonna draw her with a bit more messy hair but OTHERWISE SHE’S PERFECT. AND HER’S AND DONALDS IMMEDIATE BICKERING IS MY FAVORITE EVER. (And tbh her reaction to them NOT being Santa clause and honestly that entire net scene was also gonna be my reaction so don’t be surprised when you see that in upcoming continuation of my comic) (Also her calling Dewey a Dummy, is ACE)

So their whole fight scene going on. The whole Dumbella incident. You can just FEEL the sibling energy off of it. I ate that shit up SO FAST. I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT. (I WANT SO MUCH MORE OF THAT STUFF PLEASE DT CREW GIVE US A FLASHBACK EPISODE OF THE COUSINS I NEEEEEEED IT) If you’ve ever had a sibling then you KNOW. You know that look when Della got when Donald called her Dumbella. The No, not until you apologize she gave back. The FOR WHAT?? The endless back and forth that would have continued onward for a LONG time if they weren’t in impending doom. Man that’s the shit right there. That’s really all I wanted I could have had a full 45 minutes of just THAT right there. Just these kids being siblings.

(Also, Donald outing himself about the toothbrush and combat boots, he’s so gonna pay for that later I can feel it in my bones and I live for these moments kids)

AND THEN WE GET THE FIRST HEARTBREAKER OF THE NIGHT FOLKS, when Dewey figures out why Della’s so peeved at Donald (rightfully so) and it’s just!!! It’s just so good that all Della really wanted was to spend time with Donald and make a memory of it and catch Santa together and folks I would be lying to you and to God and to our Lord and savior Carl Barks if I said that I didn’t cry, these siblings are so good. (And the fact that Dewey also made a quick connection to himself, like, ohhh yeah I need to also be better and apologize to MY family and give MY Donald a hug when I get home)

NOW SHIT GETS REAL!!! The way Donald and Della land after getting free from the net. These kids were BORN for adventuring. This isn’t their first rodeo and this is what I want to see more of!!! Donald and Della as the fighting duo!!! (Dewey totally face planted my smol blue bean I love you) Della gets into fighting position ready to go, and Donald flips his hair back outta the way like so cool and nonchalantly LIKE DREAM TEAM SO COOL I LOVE THEEEEEMMMM!!! aND THEN when they find out the Wendigo is after Scrooge, They’re all like, “of, yeah, duh, Its always scrooge,” and then IMMEDIATELY GO AFTER HIM IN PERFECT FIGHTING SYNC LIKE THESE ARE 10-YEAR-OLDS AND THEY FIGHT LIKE THEY HAVE BEEN FIGHTING ON SCROOGE’S BEHALF FOR YEARS AND IM!!! (there’s so much fanfic potential here i’m screaming) And Dewey’s kinda just standing back like, Woah nelly, CAUSE LOOK AT THESE DUCK CHILDREN GO!!! LOOK AT MY LITTLE FIGHTING REBEL KIDS I ;KLD’KLASJ’F I LOVE THEM!!!

(Also, shout out to the last episode, in which we see that Donald kept the broken guitar under hammock all those years, he never could manage to through the thing away, i love this temperamental kid so much guys i’m crying again) But I’m glad we got to see Wee angry Donald!!! That was a fun thing I’m glad they put that in!!!

And now for the final! I’M glad Donald apologized rightly and straight away and wholeheartedly! That’s the good boy I know and Love! And Dewey going in for the hug!!! So sweet!!! But also!!! Della like, immediately figuring out that Dewey was from the future, I kinda like that! I wasn’t going to do it, but I like it! Love how smart she is and just how nonchalant they both are about it cause hey, have you MET their family? I like how they say Ducks, too. Not Mc’Ducks. Like, Scrooge is Weird and they do all sorts of crazy stuff with him, but you haven’t SEEN crazy till you’ve met the hick side of the family.

And then it’s like, just like that, they’re gone! And ouufff boy that was not the goodbye I was expecting but sometimes goodbyes are like that and that’s ok and I respect the out the DT crew took cause it flowed so nicely and well but boy did it hurt. (Can you imagine Donald and Della coming back with THEN Scrooge with this whole explanation to find nothing there and Scrooge being like???? Ack you kids leave me alone I hate Christmas as it is I don’t need you all playing tricks on me with fake Wendigos and family members from the futures when I have important things to do bah humbug or something and Donald and Della just have to live with this knowledge but at least they have each other and are closer for the better!!!) Because then Scrooge was there and THEN DEWEY WAS CRYING AND THERE’S JUST SO MANY EMOTIONS CAN YOU IMAGINE ALL THE EMOTIONS THIS KID IS GOING THROUGH RIGHT NOW AND HE JUST WANTS TO GO HOME AND SEE HIS UNCLE DONALD AND BROTHERS AND WEBBY AND JUST BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS AND ACK.

AND GOSH WAS THE DONALD DEWEY HUG JUST SO GOOD AS WELL AS THE DOGPILE LITERALLY GIVE ME ALL THE HUGS, I WANT THEM ALL THIS IS SUCH A WHOLE GOOD EPISODE!!! All in all, 10/10 Was very good. Could I have loved more of just about EVERYTHING? yes, but I can make my own content if I need to fulfill my wishes. Overall, there was nothing that disappointed me, which was so good. I wasn’t let down by the interpretations of the characters, the morals, or how the storyline went. Could we have made it into a 45-minute episode and just like, extended every conversation? Yes. But plot? Solid. Characters? Solid. Relations? Super solid. Did Sol cry? She did and she will again cause she just loves these good characters so hecking much!!! Donald is my all time favorite Disney character on the planet and just the fact that he gets so much love and attention and just all the beautiful backstory and rick history is such a beautiful gift that just keeps on giving! 

Also, FULL Disclosure, Im gonna continue part 3, 4 and 5 of my version of how I thought this episode was gonna go. Simply because, well, I liked it. And I think you all will like it to.  

Thor (2011) Review

"Whoever wields this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor."

A comic book movie that twists Norse mythology into science fiction directed by a guy best known for making lots of Shakespeare films? Let's face it, Thor was always going to be a tough sell. But somehow, against all the odds, Kenneth Branagh managed to deliver a film that is exactly what any self-respecting blockbuster should be: fun. Much like Iron Man and Star Trek, this is a blockbuster that can easily appeal to geeks and non-geeks alike. I went to see it with a friend who never read a single comic book in their life, nor the Poetic or Prose Edda, and they enjoyed it just as much as I did.

A long time ago the Frost Giants of Jotunheim tried to conquer the Nine Realms, starting with our particular branch of the world tree. They were ultimately stopped in their frosty tracks by the might of Odin and the other Asgardians. To ensure a lasting peace Odin took the source of the Frost Giant's power, the Casket of Ancient Winter, back home with him. Fast forward about a thousand years and we're introduced to Odin's sons, Thor and Loki. As eldest, Thor is his father's heir but he's arrogant, rash and thinks too much with his hammer instead of his brain (just want to be clear, the hammer is an actual hammer and not his penis). For defying his father by restarting the war with the Frost Giants, Thor is stripped of his power by Odin and banished to Midgard (that's Earth for you puny mortals). Dumped in New Mexico, the now mortal Thor quickly befriends a recent Oscar-winner, a professional scene-stealer and a Swedish character actor, and learns some valuable lessons in humility and the true value of being a hero. Meanwhile, back in Asgard, Loki is now king and getting up to all sorts of mischief.

The one thing that surprised me most about Thor was just how faithful it is to the source material. This is Norse myth as Stan Lee and Jack Kirby re-imagined it in the 1960s. The film's Asgard is a cosmic wonderland of rainbow bridges and shining golden towers that's practically ripped right out of Kirby's brain. Branagh directs the scenes here like this is some cosmic tragedy, giving the confrontations between Odin and his sons real dramatic weight with only the slightest whiff of cheddar.

Despite all the grandeur on display, the film rarely feels pompous or overblown. Once the action moves to Earth the film shifts gears and suddenly becomes a light-hearted fish out of water comedy where Kat Dennings is effortlessly stealing every scene she's in. While Asgard is pure Lee/Kirby, the Earth storyline is right out of J. Michael Straczynski's recent run (which is no surprise since JMS co-wrote the story).

A lot of film's success is due to the performances of Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston as Thor and Loki respectively. Even when he's a bit of an arrogant brat Hemsworth always makes for a likeable and endearing god of thunder, one who's equally adept at wielding the hammer as he is laying on the charm (for a Viking deity he's quite the smoothie). Hiddleston, meanwhile, wisely holds back on the ham and theatrics and makes Loki a complicated and fascinating villain. Not only that, he's the undisputed king of awesome headgear.

The romance between Thor and Jane Foster actually works quite well, with Natalie Portman's natural charm making up for Jane Foster's sketch-thin character. But ultimately it ends up playing second fiddle to the relationship between the brothers and, more importantly, Thor's relationship with his hammer (again, actual hammer, not penis). Never has a man seemed more distraught by rejection than when Thor discovers that he is no longer worthy to wield Mjöllnir.

In many ways Thor is actually a reverse origin story. When we first meet him Thor is already full formed. He's already got his costume, his powers, even his sidekicks (Sif and the Warriors Three). But he's not yet the hero he could be. It's not until he has lost his powers and become mortal that Thor learns what it truly means to be a hero. That all this meaty character development happens in the space of only a couple of days is one of the film's few flaws. The others being an underwhelming final act and Sir Anthony Hopkins phoning it in as the Allfather. Why they didn't hire BRIAN BLESSED!!!! I'll never know.

Notes and Quotes

--Don't ask me what the 3D was like. I saw it in old fashioned 2D.

--Patrick Doyle's score, his umpteenth for Branagh, is very good but not nearly Wagnerian enough for a film that is all about Norse gods.

--Both Stan the Man and Straczynski have cameos in which neither of them proves to be worthy.

--Jane has an ex named Donald Blake. In the comics Donald Blake was Thor's human alter ego.

--If you're willing, stay until after the credits for... well, that would be telling.

Thor: "My mortal form grows weak. I require sustenance!"

Agent Cale: (re: the Destroyer) “Is that one of Stark's?” Agent Coulson: “I don't know. That guy never tells me anything.”

Agent Coulson: “You made my men - some of the most highly trained professionals in the world - look like a bunch of minimum-wage mall cops.”

Volstagg: “Don't mistake my appetite for apathy.”

Hawkeye: “Do you want me to take him down or would you rather send in more guys for him to beat up?”

SHIELD Agent: “Sir, Xena, Jackie Chan and Robin Hood have arrived.”

Three rainbow bridges out of four.

Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011.

Team Titans #17

Team Titans is an anagram of Fuck Donald Trump.

The joke in the caption relies on regular readers knowing that I keep doing anagrams of the title except this time the anagram isn't an anagram at all! I know some people probably didn't even have to double check, especially the really observant ones who instinctively knew that "Team Titans" did not contain an "F". But the other point of that caption is to make readers who both enjoy Donald Trump and the stupid shit I write about comic books suddenly realize that they don't like what I write at all. In half a second, they'll realize how stupidly wrong they were about their opinions of this blog. In a half second after that, they'll admit that they've always thought I was a dumb asshole who has never written anything clever in his entire life. A few seconds after that, they'll probably be jerking off to another Hillary Clinton rant by Sean Hannity. We all have to face the consequences of our beliefs and actions. One of the consequences of supporting the modern GOP lampreys attached to the tits and ass fat of Donald Trump is that you don't get to enjoy myriad entertainments. Pretty much all you've got is Last Man Standing and reruns of Home Improvement. Of course, you could try to ignore what you've now learned because I probably won't mention it again for quite some time. But it's also possible I might pull at your victim status trigger again by the next paragraph! Speaking of triggers, the NRA can eat their own filthy asshole. Unless they like doing that! They seem like the kind of organization that would like doing that! And I don't mind kink-shaming people who love to eat their own filthy assholes because the Venn Diagram of people who can eat their own assholes and people who love to eat filthy assholes is nonexistent.

This whole nineties Teen Titans thing went off the rails a tiny bit when they introduced a rapist version of Nightwing with a nipple ring.

Is it weird that I have an unrepentant love for Lobo and a slightly repentant love for Deathstork but I feel like I'd be crossing a line having any kind of love for Deathwing? I get why people love Lobo because he's over the top and his space jeans craft a nice package in his nether area. Plus the chains! So penis stiffening! And Deathstork was cool enough to have gotten an underage girl he fucked killed without the entire comic book community feeling disgusted by him. I think his old age helped. Deathstork is like a beloved grandfather who tells such incredible stories from his youth that nobody minds that 23% of them are racist. But if somebody told me Deathwing was their favorite character, I'd be frightened. Although I guess they could mitigate that fright by explaining they like the Rebirth Deathwing and then I'd just be, "Oh, sorry. I didn't know you were gay. Cool!" That probably came across as me using gay as a synonym for lame but it was meant to express my feelings that Rebirth Deathwing should be a gay icon, if he isn't already. Like the Babadook. In that picture above, Deathwing is coming out of a clockmaker's closet (so maybe he's a gay icon too?), probably to rape the clockmaker (Oh yeah! He's totally rapey, so probably not a gay icon!). Now I'm wondering why Superman doesn't stop more rapes? Or why he doesn't commit himself to stopping all rapes? He could end rape forever with his powers! I guess he just doesn't have the commitment to end rape. You know how fast rape would have been stopped if Bruce Wayne's parents had been raped in that alley? Considering how many murders still happen in Gotham City even though Batman has dedicated his life to stopping injustice, I'm guessing it wouldn't have been fast at all. Batman is a huge failure. Meanwhile back at the Long Ranch, Nightrider (as opposed to Deathrider, his rapey twin), recovers from being shot by the neighbor. Granted, the neighbor also tracked down the wounded vampire to rescue him. He didn't realize he was shooting a living, feeling creature. He just thought he was killing a stupid bat! I hope no bats read this blog! They might think I'm being insensitive to bats! And, I mean, I am! But I don't want them to know that! They might start sending me memes of their creepy little faces saying things like, "Bats have rights too!" and "Bats cry more than most human males!" and "Today is the worst day of the rest of your terrible life, motherfucker!" That last one would make a good motivational poster for the lunchroom at most offices.

Wait. Is "vampire" a derogatory term?!

I just watched a Kids React video on YouTube about whether or not "hell" was a curse word. Sydney took the opportunity to say as many near curse words as she thought she could get away with. I'm pretty sure if I were young or hip or with it (which I obviously am not as noted by my usage of "hip" and "with it"), I would now use the word stan somehow. Why is there a Kids React for "How to Cure a Hangover"? What the fuck is wrong with the Fine Brothers?! Here are some more great ideas for your dumb Internet show: "Kids React to Joe Pesci's Death Scene in Goodfellas" "Kids React to Satanic Rituals" "Kids React to Seeing Their Parents Murdered" "Kids React to Goat Testicles" "Kids React to Their First Blow Job" I should stop listing these because I could do it all day and also I think some of them would actually work. The "How to Cure a Hangover" video isn't actually a Kids React; it's an advice episode featuring all ages of reactors. The first question they must give advice for is "How do I get someone to kiss me on New Year's Eve?" According to a lot of the answers, nobody seemed to give much of a shit about consent in 2016. Although my stan Sydney is all, "Get your parents to kiss you!" Oh my God she owns the world. The next question Sydney answers is "How do I touch a rainbow?" She says to get the biggest ladder in the world so she might be kind of dumb. I mean, a ladder doesn't have to be that big to touch a rainbow! Although she is just a kid so I'll let her slide on this answer. I suppose it's more important that she gives a cute answer than a correct one. For "How do I cure a hangover?", Sydney says, "Why are you asking me this question?" After which, I'm assuming, she walked off camera and kicked both Fine Brothers in the balls at the same time. Okay, back to Team Titans! The neighbor tries to apologize by explaining that he wouldn't have tried to murder the bat if he'd known it wasn't a disgusting bat. Terry Long, the worst character in a comic book full of terrible characters (and I'm including Deathwing here!), blames the victim and Terra's angst meter tops out. She goes into a blind Tumblr rage without any regard to the neighbor's apology, explaining how Nightrider was only acting on his true nature. The row disturbs Donna's baby which becomes the worst issue of the night.

"Whith"? I've never noticed Donna's weird accent before this issue! I also love how she thrusts her baby at the others to show that they've upset it.

While the majority of the team take Nightrider to STAR Labs for treatment (can't they just let him suck the baby a little bit?), Mirage and Terra stay behind to protect Terry and the baby. Well, Terra stays behind to protect them. Mirage still suffers from the trauma of being raped while none of the others seem to give a shit. She's decided to run away and have her baby somewhere else. Hopefully she won't have the baby in the town where Deathwing grew up because you know what that would mean, right?! Ugh, I can't even type it! Mirage was raped by her own time traveling son! Okay, it wasn't that hard to type after all.

Out in the yard, four elementals are approaching to kill Terra: an elemental of glaciers, an elemental of shit, an elemental of men's farts, and an elemental of lady's farts.

Over at STAR Labs, Doctor Velcro determines Nightrider's life can't be saved because he's already dead. He's a vampire! And Doctor Velcro knows because he's a not just a vampire specialist but a vampire himself! He's one of the Creature Commandos! His prescription to keep Nightrider alive is human blood. At this declaration, the rest of the Team Titans begin acting like Nightrider is a goner. So their first thought is that he's going to die if he doesn't drink human blood? Not one of them is all, "Drink from my veins, buddy! As much as you need! Well, maybe not too much! You know, just a taste! But there are like eight of us, so you can probably get your fill by sampling us all!" Fucking jerks.

The 90s had some pretty fucking nihilistic AIDS public service adverts.

As Terra protects New York as a Team Titan by defending herself against elementals that want to kill her, the rest of the Team Titans defend New York by battling a bunch of electric beings in thongs that want to kidnap Killowat. I laugh in your face, Councilwoman Alderman! Look at all the good these Titans are doing for the city! The energy beings easily kidnap Killowat because he only had the majority of the Team Titans and Battalion defending him. Terra, all alone, just barely manages not to die in her battle right before a newly human Prester Jon (back from the Terminus Agenda!) manages to save her.

This might be my favorite panel from 1994. In case you couldn't tell by his idiotic hands or his stupid baby, that's Terry Long under the clock.

The person who kidnapped Killowat turns out to be the clockmaker's old beau, the one that taught her to work on futuristic Titans' communicators. He was a member of the Team Titans named Lazarium but he seems to have been a spy working for Lord Chaos. The leader of the Team Titans (identity still unknown!) sent him and his team back in time to die. But he survived and now he owns a good chunk of the media world. His name might as well be Rupert Murdoch because he has a media empire that's trying to turn the world against heroes and he has his own sexual harassment problems in his organization, seeing as how Deathwing works for him. Team Titans #17 Rating: It took seventeen issues but I'm finally interested in this comic book! The Lazarium story arc has momentum and ties in to the overall history of the team, hopefully finally separating them from the Titans book for a bit. I know it still relies on garbage time travel theories but it also threatens to expose Killowat as a huge racist piece of shit! That should be exciting! It's also slightly heavy on implied rape which I didn't mean to add as one of the reasons I'm enjoying the book but just as a simple fact to say, "Look. This was a comic book from 1994! Rape was an important plot point to raise tension and pull on the emotional heartstrings of an audience that didn't quite understand how writers were just using rape as a lazy way of creating drama and emotional tenstion!" What I'm trying to say is: B+! Good work, everybody!

friends

posting my fic, it might suck but pls be nice I’m nervous

summary: Stan has a secret, he wants to tell his best friend Richie...

words: 3308

here goes nothing

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was raining outside the Tuesday Stanley Uris decided it was time to tell his best friend his biggest secret. Seems pretty fitting actually, come to think of it. The rain flowed from the rooftops into the streets of Derry, just like they had 9 years before, on the day Stan Uris first met Richie Tozier.

Before school on the first day of second grade the rain began to fall and didn’t stop until four that same afternoon. A boy was sat at the kitchen table with his mother and father, his feet swinging gently as they were too short to reach the floor. His small tight curls peeked out under the hood of his raincoat as he walked from the front door to the car. It was becoming a Uris family tradition that both Donald and Andrea drove him to school on his first day after summer vacation. It was rare for it to be raining this early into Fall, but little Stan Uris had no complaints. He always quite liked the rain. The gentle patter of rain against his window was something that never failed to comfort Stan on a restless night. Stan got out of the car at school and thanked his parents for the ride. He was extremely formal for a seven year old, a well-mannered and well-behaved young boy. He tucked his satchel under his arm to protect it from the drizzle and headed into the school building. It was very easy for him to find his way to his assigned classroom. He was among the first to arrive, naturally, so he took out his pencils and notepad and sat patiently as his classmates poured in to the classroom.

Six minutes and twenty-seven seconds into homeroom, a dripping wet boy stumbled into the room, tripping over his own feet and apologising profusely. His dark black locks clung to his forehead, a thick pair of glasses hiding the majority of the features of his face. He was directed to the empty desk on Stan’s left. Stan did his best to not be distracted by the boy who continued to fidget and make small noises, obviously trying to get Stan’s attention. The teacher instructed the class to write down a sentence about themselves, Stan was quick to pick up one of his five perfectly sharpened, same sized pencils and jotted down and introductory sentence. The boy beside him sighed with a clear sign of frustration. From the second he walked into the room, Stan could tell that this messy looking boy was unorganised. After a three-minute long struggle, the boy began to ask around frantically for a pencil. No one even considered it, no one but Stanley. It was unusual for him, to say the least. He’d always kept to himself at school, never finding it particularly necessary to collect a variety of friends along the way. But something deep inside pushed him to hold out the third of his five pencils towards the boy sitting next to him “You can borrow mine” he said, the corners of his mouth creeping into a small but welcoming smile. The boy stared back, almost dumbfounded over the fact that someone was helping him. He mumbled out a “thank you” and scrawled down a sentence that was hardly legible to Stan. “Richie, my name’s Richie” the boy says as he hands back the pencil. Stan nodded and said...

“Hi Richie, can we talk?” The house phone was cold against his face. Sixteen years old now, Stan was still fairly quiet to strangers. A whole different story to his friends. Stan was smart and sensible but always had a way of being able to make his friends cry with laughter over a witty comeback or silly joke. “Stanley do you realise that it’s eight in the morning on a Saturday. What’s more important than my beauty sleep?” Richie groaned, his voice giving away that he’d just woken up. “Gonna take a lot more than a few hours to fix you up Richard” Stan rolled his eyes “Can you just come over? This is serious” he said, a little urgently. “Staaaann” Richie sighed “It’s raining, can’t we speak over the phone?” Richie sat up in bed, not yet making any moves to get out of it. “No. You know what? Forget it, I don’t need to talk anymore. It’s nothing” Stan was in a way relieved to say that, his mind racing to figure out a way to expose the secret he’d been keeping for two painfully long years. Richie recognised the tone of Stan’s voice and knew it was urgent “I’m coming”. Before Stan had the chance to protest, the line went dead. Richie made his way down Jackson Street…

towards Stanley’s house, where he spent every minute he could, out playing ball in the yard or trying (and failing) to sit still while Stan looked for new birds to make notes about in one of his special books. The years flashed by fast and the two of them began to expand their friendship. At first just onto two others, and eventually they had a group of seven in total - The Loser’s Club.

The Summer of 91 brought the first signs of hope since the trauma of the summer two years prior. As spring rolled into summer, the sun came back with a familiar face. Beverly Marsh, who had left seven hundred and twenty four days before, was back in Derry. With the group back to it’s full size of seven, the Losers fell back in love with their idle town. But that wasn’t the only instance of love that sparked over the summer. Losing Bev had been hard on everyone, but it didn’t hit anyone as hard as it hit Ben. He realised that he was deeply in love with the fiery haired girl, and he needed to let her know. That brought the beginnings of one of many relationships within the Losers Club.

It was a warm summer night when fourteen year old Stanley Uris came to a realisation. A game of Truth or Dare was spun on its head when Stan pushed himself out of his comfort zone and chose “Dare” for the first time. Six heads snapped up to look at him in shock. He regretted it immediately to say the least. “You have to kiss….” Bev said with grin that was verging on sadistic. Stan clenched his jaw, he’d never been secure within the norm of being straight, and he’d also never kissed anyone. “All of us” Richie chimed in, laughing at the expression on Stan’s face. All Eddie’s talk of germs was racing through his head as he moved around the circle. It wasn’t until he was face to face with Mike Hanlon that Stan became very nervous, fiddling with his sleeves and tapping his toes inside his shoes. It was a fast kiss, barley over a second, but it was enough for Stan to know. He wished he didn’t know. The excitement of his friends quickly died down when Stan left in a hurry, turning back for half a moment to look at Mike before he ducked out of the door and began the walk back to his house. How could he feel like that? Why a boy? What made it so different with him? The thoughts raced around his head the whole way home, and followed him well into the night, keeping him up all night long. He couldn’t understand anything, so he said…

“Nothing, Richard I told you it was nothing” he muttered to the soaked boy who was standing in his doorway in his pyjama bottoms and some ‘edgy’ band t-shirt “Why the hell didn’t you bring a jacket?”. Richie just shrugged and shook his head like a wet dog getting the water off of him “This sounded more important that a jacket Staniel. Can you at least let me in?” he pleaded with his eyes. A sigh left Stan as he held the door open for his best friend “Please just don’t step on the carpet. Dad’ll kill me if it gets wet.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll keep off it. Have a towel or something? It’s fucking freezing” Richie groaned and sat at the kitchen table, causing Stan to visibly cringe. Stan headed to the closet to get a towel for him and returned still frowning at Richie. He had no reason to be annoyed at him, the stress of the situation was getting to him and making him snappy and very irritable. He tossed the towel to Richie and sat down opposite, unsure of where to start. Richie noticed and did it for him “You’re being very…”

“Quiet, even for you. You can talk to me you know, Stan” Richie sounded almost scared. After that night playing truth or dare, Stan went through a lot inside his own head. He was just fifteen, now more closed off than ever before, when he tried to tell Richie the first time. It didn’t go to plan to say the least. The day ended with Stan meeting his lunch again and running home crying. The problem was he couldn’t admit it to himself. No matter what he tried to tell himself, Stan just couldn’t get it out in a way that he could accept. Instead he settled for the idea that he’d never tell anyone and stay miserable forever. But this wasn’t up to him apparently. The Losers we're growing older and to Stans surprise, people seemed to want them around. The parties became more frequent,and hiding became harder. He never drank, didn’t trust himself enough to keep quiet.

The weekend before he invited Richie to his house during the biggest rainstorm in Derry for a long time, The Losers went along to some party at some house out on the outskirts of their small town. “Casey Something-or-Other” Richie had said as Stan drove the Losers up past the Standpipe towards the small suburbs on the edge of town.

The night went as they usually did, Stan slipped off from his friends once they were all busy dancing or talking. He sat himself in an upstairs bedroom until a couple decided they’d prefer to be in there. He wandered down and sat in his car, not noticing the other boy sitting in the back. He turned on the radio and tucked his legs up underneath him, just sitting watching the party go on inside the house and humming along to whatever song that was playing. The sharp clearing of another’s throat nearly stopped Stan’s heart, meaning that the small noise from the boy in the back was met with a yell. The curls on his head bounced as he spun around in his seat to look for the source of the noise. Fear became confusion when his green eyes met the deep, warm brown of Mike Hanlon’s. “Oh, uhhh, sorry Stan, didn’t mean to scare you like that” Mike spoke very quietly, looking everywhere but Stan’s eyes. Something was clearly wrong but Stan didn’t feel right just asking what was up, not after avoiding one-on-one interactions with Mike for almost a year now. “What are you doing in here?” Stan asks nervously, nervous of what he might say and what he might do. “I could asked you the same question” Mike replied quickly, almost defensive. “This happens to be my car, I was just-“ he took a breath and stopped himself from finishing the sentence. How could he tell Mike that he’d been avoiding him without sounding rude. “Just what? Why’d you always disappear at parties Stan? Do you… do you have like a secret girlfriend or something?” Mike speaks slowly and calmly, which makes Stan jealous because he can’t seem to find a way to calm down, his heart is beating wildly and he can’t seem to keep still. “What? No I don’t have a secret girlfriend. I don’t have a girlfriend full stop. I don’t disappear, always stick with you guys. Why’d you want to know anyway?” Stan spoke in a slur, stumbling on his words “Have you been drinking?” Mike frowned, not expecting this from Stan at all.

Stan turned around and flipped the radio off in a swift movement as he shook his head and furrowed his eyebrows, Mike simultaneously shuffled forward in his seat without Stan noticing. “I want to know because you’re my friend Stan, I worry about you. You’ve been pretty distant recently, we’ve all noticed it. I’m in here because I saw you sit in the car the whole time last weekend. I guessed you’d do it at this one too so I wanted to keep you company” Mike said softly, putting his hand on Stan’s upper arm. Stan kept his eyes on the spot where Mike’s hand was touching him, his skin seemed to set on fire under where Mike touched him. “I….I’m fine, you shouldn’t worry about me. I’m okay. You can go in and have fun in there if you want” he doesn’t look up from the connection between them on his arm, a thousand thoughts swam around his head; why hasn’t Mike moved his hand yet? Was he feeling it too? Why does he care so much? These thoughts were interrupted when Mike asked a very quiet question “Can I ask you something?” Stan flashed his eyes up to Mike’s face for a split second “Sure?” Mike took a deep breath like the question held great importance to him “Do you not want to be my friend?” he chewed on the inside of his cheek as he waited for an answer. Stan was taken by surprise, he understood though, of course Mike would think that with the way Stan had been acting around him “Yes, I mean No, I mean….. Mike I want to be your friend. I really do…” a tear fell down his cheek and he was glad he wasn’t facing Mike, but Mike could see, he got ever further forward in the back seat, now very close to Stan “...there’s just so much going on in my head and I can hardly even think straight right now. Nothing makes sense, hasn’t for a long time since I realised I’m… I.. I don’t know, I want to be friends, I really do, I like you, I like you a lot, maybe more than I should and I’m sorry, I’m sorry Mike I’ve not been fair to you but the truth is I-“ he didn’t finish his sentence because a finger hooked under his chin and pulled it to face the boy sitting in the back, who drew Stan into a gentle kiss. The curly haired boy went along with the kiss for a moment before his brain caught up with what was happening. He shot back and spun his body completely to face Mike “What did you do that for!?” his voice was quiet and he was still crying slightly. Mike wiped Stan’s cheeks with his thumbs “I like you Stan. And not the way you’re supposed to like a friend. Like like. And I don’t understand either” The words made Stan feel fuzzy inside, almost like he wasn’t real and all of this was happening in some crazy dream that he’d wake up from any second - except he didn’t wake up. Instead, he leaned forward and wrapped his arm around Mike’s shoulders, hugging him tightly despite the uncomfortable angle due to the car seat. “Come sit here please?” Mike asked, with an unfamiliar look in his eyes. He was unsure, Stan had never seen Mike look unsure before, at least not like this. Stan complied and sat beside one of his six best friends in the back of his mom’s car, not moving or speaking until he felt a strong arm creep around his shoulder and pull him closer. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Stan took a breath and relaxed. He didn’t know what would come of this moment, whether this would seal the deal and give him all he’d wanted deep down or do the opposite, draw the two boys even further away. What he did know was that it felt right. How could something wrong - wrong by the standards of his parents, of his religion, of everyone at school - feel so right?

The two of them just sat there, in the back of Stan’s mother’s car, Stan sometimes crying, sometimes leaning into the taller boy’s chest, until the party was over.

There was no going back from there. He knew for sure and that meant he had to tell Richie, there was no getting around it. That’s why he invited him round on the Tuesday morning following the weekend of Casey Davidson’s. “I have something to tell you. And you have to promise you won’t laugh or get weird or make some stupid joke about it” a monotonous voice comes from the light haired boy facing Richie on the table. Richie raised his hands in surrender and shakes his head “When do I ever make stupid jokes?” he says with a grin. “Richie, please? Cross your heart” Stan narrowed his eyes, his leg shaking slightly under the table. Suddenly Richie became serious, as if the importance of the crossed heart was something as solid as a contract to him. In fact, between Stan and Richie, a crossed heart was one of the realest deals that could ever be made “Cross my heart” he said while forming an X over his chest with an index finger.

Stan’s lungs filled up with air and he slowly let it all out “It’s something I think I’ve known for a while, only I’ve not been able to come to terms with it… until now I guess” he took another breath and looked at the table, foucsing on the tiny detail of the wood grain that he had studied so many times before “I found someone that I like… That I like in a different way from the way I like you or Bev or Eddie. That maybe I even love” Richie smiled and leant forward to pat him on the shoulder “That’s great Stanthony! When do we-“ he was cut off abruptly “Please. Let me finish… I- I like boys. No, a boy. Richie, I’m gay” his eyes crept back up to meet Richie’s slowly, like he was scared of the reaction he might get.

“Stan…” Richie took one of Stan’s hands and nodded at him “It’s okay, it doesn’t change anything, you know that right? You’re still my best friend. Nothing can change that” he sounded calm, almost like he was doing one of his voices, except this one wasn’t to make Stan laugh or annoy him, it was to make him feel safe. Stan searched Richie’s eyes for any sign of falseness or satire but found nothing but warmth, with a small squeeze of his best friend’s hands and a tear rolling down his cheek he opened his mouth to speak again “I love you, you’re the brother my parents could never be bothered to have” With that he stood up and pulled Richie into a hug, not even caring that he was still damp. Richie patted him on the back “I love you too, man. Always been there to look out for me, gotta do my best to do the same for you…” a smirk formed on his lips when he released Stan from the hug “Who’s the lucky fella then? Do I know him?” he gave Stan a playful shove and waggled his eyebrows. Stan snapped back to his normal self and rolled his eyes, although he was still smiling. A huge weight was off his shoulders, and even know Richie was just one of the many people he still had to tell, it was a good place to start.

Media studies music video analysis , music video analysis - colors by halsey - a2 media studies blog

Music Video Analysis - Stan by Eminem (ft. Dido) A2 Media Studies : level media studies analysis of a music video

The male and female character both look quite distressed and upset and this creates engima because the audience are unaware of what has happened. Analysis Breaking Down Childish Gambinos This is America Music Video. Brace for impact. Donald Glover, also known as Childish Gambino, dropped a new music video for his song, This is America. In the span of ten days, the video racked up more than just 129 million views it also racked up controversy. After watching the music video, both long-time Gambino fans and. For example in Joe Weller's 'wanna do' music video, the video tells the story of the start of a relationship where the boy (Joe) meeting up with a girl he's interested in for a date and shows the story of their relationship over a couple of dates and shows how they eventually get closer and end up together. Music Video Analysis - Heaven, Emeli Sande - Media Blog. Some examples are screens within screens, cameras, mirrors, etc. The first 0 45 seconds of the music video have no lyrics and have a lot of establishing shots and close ups to build the setting of the music video and also create emotion between the characters. The majority of the cuts are neither slow paced nor fast paced, they are all a relatively normal speed and this allows the everyday life of a normal relationship to be portrayed; especially the bits, which annoy those in a relationship. This music video is very simple but still gained 653 million views on YouTube which is an extraordinary number of viewers. The video allows the audience to. The setting is of the piano and an old fashioned, ruined room with Gabrielle's back towards the camera. Music Video Close Analysis Media Studies 2020-22.

There are also panning, long shots of Eric Turner playing the piano which is incorporated to present his talent of playing instruments as well as singing. These actors would like buffoons with exaggerated facial expression and movements to mock African-Americans (The Origins of Jim Crow, n.d.). The direct address puts emphasis on the words and amplifies the whole meaning of the song and the importance of love. We're going to complete a close analysis of a music video and really deconstruct and decode it for meaning and understand how and why it is. be able to play the song during the shooT. Music Video Analysis Alright OCR Media Studies A2. How To Analyze A Music Video - Understand Media. The initmidating look suggests to the audience that the record label shouldn't have crossed Ed because he may not look intimidating, but he can definitely hold his own and will be successful without them. The two shot is also a mid shot and allows the audience to see the couples body language and facial expressions all in one shot. It also suggests that when someone begins fixing you they are unresponsive and everything is quite dull, but once you begin to open up, it all becomes a bit brighter and happier and the mood of the song reflects this. This characteristic can be seen within the music video with the use of black and white colour. Price Tag is an example of type 3 - concept abstract typology because the meaning of the lyrics is that life isn't about the money you earn, it's about making the most of life and is immitating those who act like they're famous when they're just normal, everyday people. Has a running theme throughout the music video. Music Video Analysis Colors by Halsey September 15, 2016 March 26, 2017 eleanorsylviamoore Halseys music video for Colors features a storyline with an unexpected twist, intertextual references, voyeurism and relationships between the lyrics and visuals. He finally creates a voice recording of himself driving his car into a lake, with his pregnant girlfriend in the trunk, as shown in the lyrics So this is the cassette Im sending you, I hope you hear it.

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Analysis Breaking Down Childish. - College Media. The video does have an appropriate concept, showing carefully considered interpretation of the song, addressing the target audience through the narrative, mise. You would be supporting our work so that we can bring you more great resources. Create visual images that convey the meaning and story of the song. By changing the mise-en-scene, specifically location and costume it suggests that the artist is going on journey, it also suggests a length of time, as a different location and different costume suggests that it is another day within the narrative of the video. It also succeeds in creating an action-adventure effect on the audience. As the actual song is called Stan it is highly appropriate and related perfectly to the video and lyrics (excluding the chorus). Due to this being another R&B video, it would generally sway towards the male audience and would use the Laura Mulvey theory which is about there being an attractive female on screen. Music Video Analysis All About The Bass Meghan Trainor. Track Name All About The Bass. Artist Meghan Trainor. Album Title. Released 2014. Genre Pop. All about the bass is a fun, upbeat and catchy pop song that talks about how you should love your body whether you are fat or skinny. The music video starts off with the Iris Wipe effect. Music Video - Cinema and Media Studies - Oxford.

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Music Video Analysis - A2 Media Studies. Often, the artists voice or rhythm anchors the visuals. Media Studies Project; Research. Planning. Ancillary Texts; Blog; Evaluation; Plan B - Stay Too Long. Professor Green - Jungle. Plan B - The Writings on The Wall. Example - Change the Way You Kiss Me. Powered by Create your own unique. Shore believes music videos contain recycled styles and an information overload. The setting is also unfurnished and this allows the audience to solely focus on the artist character who is on the screen at the current time, which means there is only a shift of importance when the cut jumps to a different, individual artist. Analysing Music Video - Media studies. This shot then fades into a close up of Ellie Goulding's hands whilst she is playing the piano. Throughout this music video, the lighting is dark to help give the video an emotional feel so that the audience connects with the main actor. Genre Characteristics & Relationship between visuals & lyrics. The song itself is also challenging stereotypes of which genre artists perform together. This adds to the sympathy felt towards the wife due to her innocence and purity. The video is used to anchor and interpret the meaning of a song. What key representations feature in the music video?. close up's throughout the music video also shows emotions which are also relatable to the audience. This shot lasts seven seconds and the length of the shot emphasises the importance of stereotypes to the audience.

Each viewer may have a different feeling or opinion on what emotion has been created, as a metaphor can be in interpreted in different ways. Can see intertextuality; there are links to the Hunger Games, Divergent, Tron and multiple more. The music video also relates to Richard Dyer's paradox of the star because in the music video she is 'both ordinary and extraordinary.'. For the first three seconds of the music video, there is a spotlight, which gradually increases in size and reveals Matthew Morgan who does the lyric signing. A2 Media Studies Music Video Analysis - Bad Blood, Taylor. Analysis of a music video - A-Level Media Studies. Retrieved from https q.utoronto.ca courses 51808 pages week-1-lecture-slides. Regardless of the slow paced editing, there is still an element of fast paced editing from 1 30 - 1 37 and it cuts from a Long shot of Chris, to a mid shot, to a close up, to a mid shot, then a close up and then a long shot. This will help you to make detailed textual analysis. The video part of a music video is what truly sets it apart from a song by itself. The video contains messages that the musician wants to convey to the audience. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in metal video, dance routine for boy girl band). 2. There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting). 3. There is a relationship between music and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting). 4.

For this task, you will analyse a music video. It can be any genre, from any era, be in any style, and be any length. It cannot simply be live footage. Scholars of media economics and institutions studied the ways in which music video production had come to be integrated within the. The majority of people who answered the survey also said that they would prefer to see a music video that has a clear narrative or back story and videos which are set in various locations. Music Video Analysis Analysis Essay Examples. The three different codes concepts give the audience different feelings and different ways to interpret what they are viewing and apply it in alternative ways, sometimes to their everyday lives if inspiring. This music video has had huge success, and currently holds over 450,205,000 views on YouTube. Presumably, this girl was in search for love and just as her hope is lost she finds it. Discuss, referring to at least two music videos. A2 Media Studies - Music Video Analysis - SlideShare.

If there was a story that was acted out in the music video it would restrict the listener from being able to attach their own meaning to the song and create. music, dance, acting) that appeals to a mass audience (Mehta, 2018a). Music Video Analysis Colors by Halsey A2 Media Studies. The location of the music video and the use of space relates to the social construction of society; where individuals are contained in certain geographic spaces. The individuals in the background of the music video have limited freedom of movement relative to space the individuals are in. Moreover, the music video sheds limelight on the bitter reality of society as being chaotic and. MUSIC VIDEO ANALYSIS a2-media-studies. There is a relationship between the music and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music. However there is also a narrative of a boy who looks like he has lost his father and moved away with his mother and is struggling to settle in. We will be completing some preliminary tasks to teach you a few skills in preparation for shooting and editing your own videos. This enhances the communication between Taylor and her fans. The contrast between high key and low key lighting depending on what is happening in the video would definitely be an effective way to portray emotion to the audience. To what extent do the music videos you have studied give prominence to the following aspects intertextuality; performance; narrative; production design; cinematography; animation and CGI. The video is used to anchor and interpret the meaning of a song.

Are these reflections of real people or are they just one-sided characters?. though there is a black and white filter on the music video, the audience can still identify the low key and the high key lighting. Being apart of a choir suggests purity and innocence, which aren't two representations that would normally be considered for Ed Sheeran, however with the black and white filter this suggests that the music industry ruined his innocence. There are likely to be intertextual references, either to other music videos or to films and TV texts; these provide further gratification and pleasure for the viewers fans. The video begins with a low shot looking up at a flat. This then cross cuts to a close up of Ed's guitar and him playing it, however we only see the guitar and his hand, not above his mid-drift or below his hips. Analysis of Childish Gambinos This is America Music Video. To help us go into more depth of planning out video shots and concepts, I am going to analyse a few music videos within the RnB genre to make myself more familiar with this genre from an analytical point of view. Music Videos - Media Studies. This contradiction shows that money tree's don't exist so it is suggesting to the audience that they should be obsessed with money and what expensive items they may own. It then becomes evident to the audience that the narrative is discussing a boy and her love for him. Drugs and sexuality are now explicitly evident. Music Video Analysis Stan by Eminem (ft. Dido) A2 Media Studies The song tells the story of a fictional person named Stanley "Stan" Mitchell who claims to be Eminem's biggest fan. In the song, he writes letters to Eminem, with each verse he becomes gradually more obsessed with him, and when there is no reply he becomes progressively angrier. The video won Video of the Year at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards and Best Short Form Music Video at the 2013 Grammys. It is an image and a representation constructed to appeal to an audience. However, in this case the only female shown in the video is Dido, although she is not portrayed in a very sexual way and therefore the music video does not meet the typical audience and genre conventions. Why not have a look at some examples of music video analyses from a former (A grade) student? http trishavekaria. a2-media analysis. You can learn a lot more about this topic by buying our book, Practical Media Literacy An essential guide to the critical thinking skills for our digital world.

Nowadays mass media have become messengers of significant social processes and reactions to them. This looks really effective and also briefly disorientates the audience because the wall isn't actually closing in on her, it is purely edited to give the illusion of the given effect. This creates unnecessary fear and anxiety among people. Music Video Analysis; Media Theories. Information and Tasks for Year 12 Media Studies Students. This therefore makes the music video rememberable, which increases its popularity. This music video has no intention of meeting Demands from a record label as the artist is never featured in this music video. This video is solely telling a story of the struggles that we encounter in everyday life whether it be searching for love, hope etc. Stephen Crossfire Part II. Music Video Analysis. There's lots of emphasis on the sound of their heels clicking on the ground as they're training. The different lighting clearly distinguishes between performance and narrative and this makes the music video clearer and easier to understand. It appears in Gambinos music video that African-Americans, who are active participants in the entertainment industry are less likely to be targeted and affected by the violence and hatred surrounding them. The origins of music videos date back to musical short films in the 1920s. A high angle is used to show Didos lifestyle and the fact that she is pregnant. Goodwin's Music Video Analysis. Andrew Goodwin writing in 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory' (Routledge 1992). 1. Music videos demonstrate genre. When the band are performing the cuts are normally low key lighting and this adds to the dull and disappointed mood of the music video. At 2 40 minutes Chris appears on stage and the video then goes from a really basic performance without any musicians, to the whole of Coldplay performing in front of a concert and this exaggerates the popularity of the band and their success. Media Studies - Music Videos - SlideShare. Discuss the importance of location in the two music videos you have studied from list A and B.

3 Music Videos Analysis A2 Media Studies Music Video

The theme, mise-en-scene and the events of the video are helping to portray the message of the song e.g. Here are some questions to ask yourself to begin understanding music videos. This means that the lyrics are being represented with the moving images leading the audience feel the emotion and the message that is trying to be passed on. There are numerous close ups of Kate performing her song and this shows her talent and the fact that she is the main singer of the song. All about the bass is a fun, upbeat and catchy pop song that talks about how you should love your body whether you are fat or skinny. Media studies Analysing Music Video. Record labels aim to get information about artists and new releases out to their target audiences, both established fans and new fan bases, to achieve maximum product sales of music releases, concert tickets and merchandise. For this task, you will analyse a music video. It can be any genre, from any era,. This will help you to make detailed textual analysis. Analysis The music video Alright by Kendrick Lamar uses Cinematography to establish its ideals. For instance with the establishing shot of the golden gate bridge and the multiple examples of angled up shots of sky scrappers and flats. A Level Media Studies Exemplar Candidate Work - OCR.

As the song develops and the setting changes from urban to a live stage, there are numerous long shots of the. 5 key elements of a music video Media language - effect of camerawork, editing, lighting, sound and mise-en-scene Genre - how does the video link to the music genre? Audience Narrative Representation - how is the artist represented? Media Language in Taylor Swift's Bad Blood Video Mise-en-scene. The main female actor (Madonna) has feelings for the main character however, the male character doesnt feel the same way about her. Richard Dyer also says that there are common values of a pop star and these include sexual magnetism, youthfulness and creativity talent and these are three categories which the music video fits into, in perspective. A2 Media Studies - Music Video Analysis. 1. Music Video Analysis by Andrew Goodwin Theology; 2. Andrew Goodwin 7 key ideas to identify 1. Music videos. Binary Opposites When products incorporate examples of opposite values, for example poverty and wealth. Music Video Analysis by media studies - Prezi. Intertexuality is a key aspect in this music video, as the music video is based around the idea of Barbie. Music Video Analysis - Media Studies - Weebly. Representation - how is the artist represented?

On the one hand, it presents a typical teenage protest, but, on the other hand, this protest can be viewed as directed against the whole show business and music industry in particular. Music video Dont Let Me Get Me (2001) by Pink presents a rather peculiar insight into the representation of the society in media. As a secondary product compared to the song, the clip possesses several layers of meanings. The most important of them are connected with gender stereotyping, as well as cultural interpretation of the. Music Video Research - Media Studies - Weebly. If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help. There are long shots and close ups of Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth performing, alongside shots from Fast and Furious which are there to show the story of Paul Walkers life throughout fast and furious as a tribute to him following his death. Bad Blood Taylor Swift Music Video - Amazon AWS. However, we also need to be original because otherwise we are not showing our creativity, which is a vital element in the media industry. This again makes the video relatable to a young audience, as well as an older audience because they can reminisce about their young love. For instance there are ordinary people wearing casual clothing dancing with her at the end of the music video and this makes the audience feel as though they are present in their life. Hajra's media studies. Music video blog! Music Video Analysis; Media Theories Eminem- The Monster (Explicit) ft Rihanna Enrique Iglesias- Hero Leave a Reply. There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, with the visuals illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the lyrics. This all adds to the ideal of local pride,. The juxtaposed representation of the boy suggests that he acts strong but is alos vulnerable and this is shadowing Ed's initial representation into the music business; due to his quirqy looks. Playing with fire generally always ends in disaster and therefore in this sense it shows that fixing someone involves taking a risk. This proves Godwin's theory of music videos as it comes under voyeurism.

Trump voters stay loyal because they feel disrespected

By James Hohmann, Washington Post, May 14, 2018

Three new deep dives into Donald Trump’s strength in Midwestern counties that were previously Democratic strongholds--written by conservatives, liberals and a nonpartisan journalist--each highlight a deep craving for respect among supporters of the president and an enduring resentment toward coastal elites that buoys his popularity.

Republicans and Democrats who have traveled to Macomb County in the Detroit suburbs, which Trump won by 12 points after Barack Obama carried it twice, including by 16 points in 2008, came away struck by these dynamics.

-- Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, who helped orchestrate Bill Clinton’s 1992 victory, has obsessively studied the “Reagan Democrats” in Macomb for more than three decades. He went back after the 2016 election to understand how Trump won Michigan and recently returned to conduct another round of focus groups. “Trump voters complain that there is no respect for President Trump or for people like them who voted for him,” Greenberg writes in a new memo summarizing his latest findings, with Nancy Zdunkewicz of Democracy Corps.

One older white working-class woman recalled that, when she first started voting, “There was so much respect for the president. And I don’t care what he did, or what he said, there was always respect. It was always ‘Mr. President.’” She said she is disgusted by the way people talk about Trump.

“A healthy diet of Fox News is feeding the white working-class men fending off the challenges of Trump’s opponents, including those within their own families,” Greenberg and Zdunkewicz write. “They … feel vindicated that a businessman like Trump has produced a strong macro-economy and kept his promises on immigration. They continue to appreciate how he speaks his mind, unlike a typical politician. … One white working class man shared that he ‘lost contact with [his] own daughter because of the election.’ Others complain that their children and millennial friends challenge their views and suggest the media manipulates them. … Families dividing over the 2016 election reflects just how central feelings about Trump have become to people’s identities.”

-- Respect is also a central undercurrent in “The Great Revolt,” a new book by Republican operative Brad Todd and conservative columnist Salena Zito. Macomb is one of 10 counties they studied across the five states that tipped the election to Trump to chronicle how he forged his conservative-populist coalition. Here is sampling of quotes from Trump voters interviewed for the book:

“We voted for President Obama and still we are ridiculed. Still we are considered racists,” said Cindy Hutchins, a store owner and nurse in Baldwin, Mich. “There is no respect for anyone who is just average and trying to do the right things.”

“Our culture in Hollywood or in the media gives off the distinct air of disregard to people who live in the middle of the country, as if we have no value or do not contribute to the betterment of society,” said Amy Giles-Maurer of Kenosha, Wis. “It’s frustrating. It really wants to make you stand up and yell, ‘We count,’ except of course we don’t. At least not in their eyes.”

“Live in a small or medium-sized town, and you would think we were dragging the country down,” said Michael Martin of Erie, Pa. “We aren’t a country just made up of large metropolitan areas. Our politics and our culture up until now has dictated that we are less than in the scale of importance and value.”

Todd is a partner at OnMessage, a powerhouse GOP consulting firm, who has helped elect seven senators, five governors and more than two dozen congressmen. Zito is a syndicated columnist from Pittsburgh. Together, they identify seven archetypes of voters who fueled Trump’s victory. The chapters include vignettes about three individual voters who fit each mold.

Some categories are obvious, like blue-collar workers who have personally experienced a job loss in the past seven years or independents who were amenable to Ross Perot’s campaigns two decades earlier. Others are more surprising, such as women under 45 who support gun rights for self-defense reasons. A majority in that category admit in post-election polling that they felt uncomfortable telling friends they supported Trump because they knew they would face disapproval.

“King Cyrus Republicans” is what the authors call evangelicals who stuck with Trump after the “Access Hollywood” tape came out because they wanted a conservative to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. That’s a reference to the sixth-century pagan Persian king who released Jews from bondage in Babylon.

Trump’s margin was weaker than Mitt Romney’s in 86 of the 100 most educated counties in the country. Trump’s level of support was higher than Romney’s in 1,449 of the 1,500 American counties with the lowest concentration of bachelor’s degrees. “The driver of this split is not the college education itself, but the social pressure that comes with living exclusively among other college graduates,” Zito and Todd write. “Rotary Reliables” is the name the authors give to the kind of country-club Republicans who refused to support Trump in more highly educated areas of the country but stuck with him in the Rust Belt because they spend their days hanging or working around less-educated blue-collar types.

Notably, people in all seven of their categories expressed frustration, even a year after the election, that they are not understood, respected or valued by the powers that be on the East and West coasts. “In the short span of a generation, the face and focus of the Democratic Party nationally has shifted from a glorification of the working-class ethos to multiculturalist militancy pushed by the Far Left of the party,” Zito and Todd argue. “The driving construct of otherness … is at its core driven by perceptions of respect. … The professional Left focuses heavily on race-related questions in analyzing the Trump vote, but race-tinged subjects were rarely cited by Trump voters interviewed for this book.”

-- Trump appealed to the “forgotten man,” a term his campaign often used, with a message that was infused less with ideology than grievance. He repeatedly benefited from his opponent giving him fodder. “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Hillary Clinton said in September 2016 at an “LGBT for Hillary” gala in New York. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic--you name it. And, unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”

The Democratic nominee added that “the other half” of Trump’s supporters were “people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change.” But this nuance was lost. Many heard Clinton saying they were deplorable, and the gaffe helped galvanize wobbly Republicans.

-- Dan Balz, The Washington Post’s chief correspondent, spent the past 16 months interviewing voters in rural areas of the upper Mississippi River valley where Obama won but then broke decisively for Trump. Macomb is suburban and wasn’t part of the area Balz explored, but there are notable echoes in his piece. His fascinating report filled a special section in Sunday’s newspaper. Some relevant nuggets:

“One of the places I would agree with the hardcore Trump people, they’re tired of being treated as the enemy by Barack Obama,” said Dennis Schminke, 65, a retired manager at Hormel, the company makes Spam in Austin, Minn., an area just north of the border with Iowa.

Trump was the first Republican to carry Mower County, which includes the meatpacking town, since Richard Nixon beat John F. Kennedy there in 1960. Schminke said Trump’s appeal there was born in part of resentment toward the Obama presidency. “His comment, the whole thing, it’s been worn out to death, that clinging to God and guns, God and guns and afraid of people who don’t look like them, blah, blah, blah. Just quit talking down to me,” he explained. “I despise Barack Obama. I think primarily because I don’t think he thinks very much of people like me. That’s just the long and short of it.”

Andrew Chesney, 36, a conservative businessman in Freeport, Ill.--the site of the second Lincoln-Douglas debate in 1858 and a county that Obama carried in 2008--said Midwesterners feel let down by political leaders from both parties. “We’re constantly being preached to by those that in many cases have never done it,” he said. “This is an area that we try to work hard, play by the rules. It’s not a fast pace, it’s not a fancy pace, but we appreciate it. We like our big vehicles and our large parking spots, and that works for some people and it doesn’t work for others.”

-- Other reporters on our staff routinely hear similar sentiments when interviewing voters. David Miller, a white 54-year-old, talked with The Post at a polling place in Cleveland last Tuesday as he pulled a Republican primary ballot for the first time he could remember to vote in the governor’s race. Like so many others, he said he came to feel left behind before the 2016 election. “I mainly was a mainstream Democrat,” he told Afi Scruggs. “Every time I turned on the TV, there’s a Democrat calling me a racist and I just got tired of it.”

-- One reason Balz’s piece is great is that it’s longitudinal: It tracks in a nuanced way how specific people’s attitudes about Trump have shifted gradually since he took office. In some cases, folks who reluctantly backed him are more strongly supportive now than then. Others have peeled away as they became fatigued by the drama and scandal that follows this president.

The best illustration is Kurt Glazier, 50, from Sterling, Ill. He’s a state worker, a union member and chairman of the Republican Party in Whiteside County, where Ronald Reagan was born. Balz visited him four times, including long talks in the dining room of his home.

Eight days before the inauguration, Glazier lamented the political divisions that had been building for years. “I very much dislike the fact that a lot of people stereotype Republican individuals, Republican people, that we’re racists. I think that is further from the truth,” he said.

By midsummer of 2017, Glazier had growing concerns about Trump. “Every night when I watch the national news, I wonder what circus is going to be on the news, what they’re going to talk about,” he said. “I hoped for more of the making America great again … It’s almost like it’s ‘The Apprentice’ on a daily basis.”

Near the first anniversary of the president taking office, Glazier worried especially that those who voted for Trump are now viewed by others as therefore being like Trump. “I’m far from being a racist,” he said. “I’m far from being a bigot. Not everybody makes the crude comments. Not everybody walks and talks like he’s a big bully, like the president can do sometimes.”

A few weeks ago, Glazier watched Stormy Daniels’s interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and felt “a little saddened” by the steady stream of Trump’s self-inflicted mistakes. “It does nothing for his reputation,” he said. “Of course, the real die-hard Donald Trump lovers eat this up and they eat these scandals up.”

But Glazier drew a distinction between the staunchest Trump supporters and other Republicans--like him. “I think the real party faithful, the educated voters, might be beginning to distance themselves from him, and I wouldn’t be too surprised to see a Republican challenger or challengers against Trump,” he said. “They wanted so much of a change. But he has some changing to do himself before I would be supportive of him again. … A 71-year-old man like he is, I don’t foresee him changing a whole lot.”

2020 Reading Wrap-Up

This year was extremely cathartic in terms of reading. The past few years I’ve been reading, but not very fast and not very often. I am proud to say that as of today, I have read 31 books this year. Not only was this the most I’ve ever read period, but the most varying in genres that I’ve ever read. Normally I stick to ya contemporary and fantasy, but this year I jumped around from middle grade to adult to new adult back to ya. I also discovered my favorite authors of all time. The books I read this year were fun, eye-opening, and engaging. Some of them I definitely didn’t like as much as the others, but that’s a story for later.

Without further or do...here are my top 8 of the year!

1. The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

This is the book that started my rom-com kick this year. I started off the year finishing up the TATBILB series and I immediately jumped into The Hating Game and my god did I fall in love with it. If you haven’t heard of it, it follows Lucy and Josh who work together and are mortal enemies and well...I think you can guess where it goes. It’s hilarious, it’s sweet, and boy is it sexyyyy. I can’t wait to see it come to life on the big screen with Lucy Hale and Robbie Amell! They just started shooting and I can totally see them both being perfect in their rolls.

2. Josh & Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren

Last year for Christmas, this was one of the books I got - along with The Hating Game. It took a while to start this one but I loved it and it made me see how incredible Christina Lauren is. There’s a way that they write about love that’s unlike any other. This one was also sweet, hilarious, and sexy and the ending had me all emo. Friends to lovers is one of my favorite tropes so if that’s what you love, this one would be right up your alley. It’s about Hazel - a wacky, zany teacher who in college had several run-ins with Josh that didn’t go very well. Years later, they run into each other at a party and become friends. This eventually leads to them going on double dates with people they set each other up with - but they always end up going home together;)

3. The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren

O. M. G. This was a WILD ride. I had no idea what to expect with this one but I definitely had many times where I was actually laughing out loud. The premise of this one is insane: our main character’s twin sister is getting married and she just so happens to hate the brother of the groom. On the night of the wedding, the main character and the brother end up being the only ones at the wedding who don’t get food poisoning so they’re forced by their siblings to take their honeymoon trip to Hawaii. If that hasn’t hooked you, I don’t know what will. 

4. In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren

THIS. BOOK. One of my favorites I’ve EVER read. It’s everything I could ever want: romance, humor, and CHRISTMAS! I feel like I should’ve kept this one closer to Christmas but I read it at the beginning of November and it instantly put me in the spirit. With a lot of these rom-coms, it’s easy to predict what’s gonna happen, but this one I had NO IDEA how it was going to end. And I loved every second of the journey. This one follows Mae to her family and family friends’ cabin on Christmas. After a disastrous trip, she gets in a car accident with her family and ends up repeating the holiday over and over again. Oh and there’s a cute boy that she’s nursed a crush on for years. This one had me laughing out loud too and also crying. We absolutely stan this and I will definitely be reading every year at Christmas time.

5. Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Holy. Shit. I can’t even describe how much I loved this book. If you know me, you know how much I love music so this was the PERFECT book for me. At first it took some time to get into, but once I was into it...phew. It absolutely flew by and all I wanted to do was read. It’s about a fictional band from the 1970′s. I don’t even know what to say other than that so I don’t spoil anyone but it is a JOURNEY.  I found myself gasping at some points because of how shocking some things were. Ugh. I loved it. If you like Fleetwood Mac in any way, I highly, highly, highly recommend this book.

6. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I knew I wanted to read this after I finished Daisy Jones, but I actually didn’t get around to it until a week or so ago. I flew through this one too and oh my god. If Daisy Jones wasn’t shocking enough for you then this one. Oh. My. God. It’s about Evelyn Hugo, a fictional starlet from the 50′s (? I think) who asks a small time writer to help write her biography - to be released after she’s dead. Evelyn is such an intriguing character, you just want to know more and more and more. And there’s one thing about her that is absolutely shocking. There are actually so many shocking revelations throughout this book and it all took me completely off guard. Surprisingly, I feel like I learned a lot through this book and from Evelyn. She’s painted out to be not a very great person, and I think I understand why people think that about her, but I don’t see her that way at all. I actually feel like she’s a good person, maybe a bit selfish, but there’s one thing all of her decisions have in common. Love.

7. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

Phew. I can’t believe it took me this long to read this book. I thought I’d be okay with just seeing the movie but let me tell you...the book is so much more eye opening and amazing.. After the protests in June, I saw everyone talking about things like White Fragility and How to Be an Antiracist - but I knew those books wouldn’t be for me. Now hear me out...I hate non-fiction. I learn lessons much better through fictional stories and that’s why this one resonated so much with me. Starr is one of the most brave, incredible characters that I’ve had the pleasure of reading. The way Angie writes her story is both beautiful and heartbreaking. You watch as she changes and how the people around her change by the horrific event that has taken place. I’m not gonna try to summarize it, because hopefully everyone knows what it’s about by now. If you haven’t yet, go pick it up. Right now. I feel like this is a story that’s going to be around forever and that we’ll be giving to our children to read when it’s time. As a white person, I can be empathetic, but I truly will never understand what it’s like for Black people, but reading this gave me a better understanding of what is actually happening. The Hate U Give taught me about how broken the system is, and how we can fix the issues that are plaguing the Black community right now. The most poignant and important book I could ever read.

8. On the Come Up by Angie Thomas

After The Hate U Give, I couldn’t not read this one. And wow. On the Come Up follows Bri, the daughter of a rap legend, who is trying to make it in Garden Heights - the same neighborhood Starr is from in The Hate U Give. Bri’s journey is rough, but it’s incredible to see the work she puts in to end up on top. Sometimes the decisions she makes get taken the wrong way, but in the end, her family as at the core of every decision she makes. All she wants is her family to be okay and I think that’s something that a lot of people can relate to. On the Come Up might not be as deep as The Hate U Give, but Angie teaches some incredible lessons through this story too. Also, let me just say...Angie wrote some INCREDIBLE raps for this book and I really hope we get to hear them come to life one day.

Other reads:

Those are my favorites of the year, but I still read a lot of other books this year. I re-read The Hunger Games trilogy! I read The Hunger Games way back in 2010, so it was about time that I re-read them. And let me be honest...I stopped Catching Fire about halfway through...so I never finished them until this year...I have to say they were kind of disappointing. It might just be that it’s been so long that I don’t connect as much with the stories anymore, but they are still great.

I FINALLY read the Percy Jackson series! I had The Lightning Thief chilling on my shelf since I was in 5th grade and something finally got me to read this series. It did not disappoint and I loved every second of it. I can’t wait to see what the Disney+ series is going to be like - hopefully they actually do it justice this time around.

This year I have been obsessing over Tom Holland...lol so naturally I read every book that he was signed on to be in the adaptation for. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness aka the first Chaos Walking book was by far my favorite. The movie is coming out in March! I also read Cherry by Nico Walker and The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock. Cherry was...interesting. I kind of hated the narrator the whole time so I’m hoping they changed up the movie a bit. I’m thinking they did because I read some BTS stories and some of them don’t line up with what was in the book. TDATT was a little disturbing...but I enjoyed it. The book was much better than the movie, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend either to anyone...unless you wanted to see Tom or Sebastian Stan or Riley Keough in the movie. I’m sure I will be finishing the Chaos Walking series eventually and I’m also interested in reading Beneath a Scarlet Sky which Tom has been signed on to for a while. That one sounds very intriguing and I’m excited to hopefully read it next year.

I finally watched Big Little Lies and I wasn’t going to read the book, but I did end up eventually reading it. It was good but not nearly as good as the series. It might be because I knew how it all would end, but it overall, was not my favorite. I don’t think I’ll be reading any more of Liane Moriarty’s books though.

Oh! So I read The Cursed Child...That’s all I’m gonna say.

I completely forgot to add I also read Roomies and Twice in a Blue Moon by Christina Lauren. Roomies was very good and probably could be in my favorites list, but it just didn’t reach the level of the other three. It was fun though, so if you liked any of those three, I would recommend it. Twice in a Blue Moon though...I was so bored. I almost stopped reading it a few times but I just pushed through. It wasn’t a rom com at all, just a romance, which wasn’t for me. A lot of people that liked Christina Lauren recommended Beach Read - which I read, and did not enjoy very much. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t phenomenal, that’s for sure.

There were a few YA books I read this year: Slayer, Truly Devious, Capturing the Devil, the final two TATBILB books...but my favorite was Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare. It’s been a while since I’ve been into her books but wooooww. Chain of Gold was incredible. I loved the characters and I loved that we got to see our favorite characters from The Infernal Devices again. It was a JOURNEY and reminded me why I started reading CC in the first place.

Well...That’s it for my reading wrap up of 2020! Here’s to another great year of great books in 2021!

Everything Happens For A Reason And That Reason Is Usually Physics T Shirt

Your writers are great as well he should handle easy to maneuver diet Vance writer I would really try to really knowing something to 4 feet of the sportster Your team could actually as part of the culture that devices sporty’s for name culture tinkering on this engine that to work on everything said said this is a Everything Happens For A Reason And That Reason Is Usually Physics T Shirt great platform for you as well if you’re one of those guys to all mentioned as well again this is just my speculation that because this framing engine is been around for so long in this is probably next to the next family for Harley Davidson to change at so using just announced that their closing the York are seasoning the Kansas City plants in Kansas City plan right now they build the sportster’s in the streets so there my prediction is to have for one more year concert have the plant operatingand tell the the need 2019 cell believe it was June 2019 wasand the friction between a model year so I would on this year going 2019 Molly year following these bikes probably go away 2020 I don’t know for sure justice I guess you guys this was the video for any questions please feel even in the comments belowand is always looking for a new utensil in California area present the other laid off Harley Davidsonand Lavergne this Sunday bike AKS later For over 100 years Harley Davidson has pioneered what has become the iconic American motorcycle for over a century the writers have fallen in love with the American engineering what makes up a Harley Davidson between engine the day before the big pistons under is from the simplistic Ross styling in the classic appeal that is timeless but what happens when you take all that away in 2014 Harley Davidson announced the LiveWire project it was a working prototype for their first ever all electric motorcycle the first all that you motorcycle ever to be released by major motorcycle manufacturer the tour route 66 with the project LiveWire allowing take a ride to gather feedback pride is six years later in the 2020 model year they lost the first ever all electric Harley Davidson motorcycle this is my day in Los Angeles writing first LiveWire Laidlaw screw Nickand Angela help me out I enlisted the help of an influential electric vehicle expert Diego Cardenas connect to a Hail Mary reset to guide it’s always in my dream to work with a guy who has a deep rooted affiliation with Harley Davidsonand has led the Harley culture his whole lifeand accomplished actor probably neither shipownerand most importantly probably easiest fire sporty day today writing within the bike completely to zero I want to make sure you drain the battery all the way down to the bike would not move another eachand in charge it upand I learned the time the charging for myself on Davidson claims it charges 80 and 45 minutesand hundred percent in one hour but I wanted to put that to the test on the DC fast charge you got two options basically the charges motorcycle complains along hundred 20 V takes about 10 hours to charge it I did not test that you can use a DC fast chargers considered a level III DC faster stations are available at all Harley Davidson dealership to carry the LiveWire I get a lot of questions about the level to which the 240 V ally cars use that’s the LiveWire does not have the capability to charge faster than the level one with the level to the reason being is they didn’t have enough real estate on the bike to put the proper charger on there to mitigate the heat in a conscious decision to use a real estateand give it to a level III charging which provides the fastest charging available to you earlier riveted on a freeway daughter miles an hour examined from road notes for the whole free day so we were definitely doing what you want to do if you want to get maximum on the batteryand hundred 20 freeway the theme expectation is not that posed a little over hundred 47 case scenario effect on surface streets good onand off writing an hourand look at the charge every unit cells LiveWire is mandatory for as he says in about an hour when our unityand hundred percent severance right now you said the bite is a complete zero as far as charge right nowand when Georgia back up the hill on DC fast charge over the flat here this port here is the communicator that was at that point misses her all the powers transferred in this port here recognizes the help though authorized in vehicle gaps trade up as one person they were start the timer right now like DC fast charge system gulping that you stand by restarting the timer right now right now againand Q3and DC charge use right now my time one hour battery charge one hour Harley Simon Simon been about 48 1 2 minutesand were at 79 in so he says 80 in 45 minutes so that pretty day close reading class so you write a 49 minute mark right now what I made yesterday four minutes offand I’m sure there’s always a little bit of variation among chargers they could be a new yeah that’s a good point so not I don’t believe manufactures published numbers but this is actually very very close so charge the fire by a one hour in four minutes from completely life would not start to follow it with DC fast charge which really advertises a full charge in one hour’s only format that pretty day good one thing I will say I mean smears yearand that all their numbers are pretty conservative they want consumers really do all their numbers from the rain charge time ourand so surround my view is most people will charge facing the one or will be no 80 and 45 minutes and. BUSINESS TO BUSINESS KIND OF LIKE IT’S THE KNOWLEDGE WORK WHEREAS PEOPLE WHO ARE DOING THINGS THAT HAVE DIFFERENT MANUAL LABOR ETC. UNCOVERING WHO AND WHAT WE ARE AS HUMAN BEINGS AND THAT’S REALLY BEGINNING TO COME FORTH SO WE CONTINUE TO INVESTIGATE AND WILL INVESTIGATE AS WE GO TO THE FUTURE HOW WHAT IS TO BE HUMAN WHAT IT IS TO WHAT ARE THESE POWERS THAT ARE BEING HIDDEN FROM US TO CHANGE AND CREATE SO THIS IS A VERY FASCINATING TOPIC AND GREG AND BRADEN REALLY DOES A GOOD JOB OF EXPLORING THE NEXT WE HAVE JOE DISPENSE AGAIN ON HOW TO MAXIMIZE MINE POTENTIAL AND THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT AS WE GO THROUGH THESE DIFFICULT TIMES THAT WE UNDERSTAND WHAT’S GOING ON IN OUR MINDS AND OUR THOUGHTS HAVE A TREMENDOUS EFFECT ON HOW WERE GOING TO REACT AND RESPOND OR RESPOND TO THESE EVENTS THAT THAT WE SEE COMING DOWN THE ROAD LAST

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Vampires vs. the Bronx回魂2~2020完整版本 It 2 2020 电影 完整版HD

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With Harry Melling, Riley Keough, Tom Holland, Bill Skarsgård. In the 1960s after World War II in Southern Ohio, bizarre, compelling and mentally disturbed people suffer from the war’s psychological damages. Fearless (film) - Wikipedia - Fearless is an upcoming American psychological thriller film based on the novel of the same name by Donald Ray Pollock.Directed and co-written by John Paul Murphy and produced by Jake Gyllenhaal and Randall Poster, the film features an ensemble cast including; Tom Holland, Bill Skarsgård, Riley Keough, Jason Clarke, Sebastian Stan, Robert Pattinson, Haley Bennett, Mia Wasikowska … Fearless by Donald Ray Pollock - Set in rural southern Ohio and West Virginia, Fearless follows a cast of characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrifi­cial blood he pours on his “prayer log.” Amazon.com: Fearless (9780307744869 … - In ‘Fearless’, we are introduced to a number of characters who have an unhealthy obsession with either religion, sex or violence (and occasionally a combination of all three). It’s an original and well-written story and moves along at a fast pace, before reaching an inevitable, bloody climax. Fearless - Película 2020 - SensaCine.com - ‘Fearless’: Sebastian Stan sustituirá a Chris Evans Evans ha tenido que renunciar al proyecto por problemas de su agenda, ocupada por 'Infinite’ y la nueva serie de Apple, 'Defending… Fearless - film 2020 - AlloCiné - Fearless est un film réalisé par John Paul Murphy avec Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson. Synopsis : Knockemstiff, Ohio. Face à sa femme mourante, un homme désespéré, Willard Russell … Fearless (2020) - Full Cast & Crew - IMDb - Fearless (2020) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. Fearless: Netflix Sets Release Date for Star … - Fearless: Netflix sets release date for star-studded film. Netflix has finally announced the release date for director John Paul Murphy’ forthcoming psychological thriller film The … Fearless Netflix release date, cast … - Fearless cast. Netflix has never had a problem attracting big Hollywood names for its projects, but Fearless just might feature one of its most top-tier casts of yet …“ Watch Free Movies and TV Shows OnlineYou’re in the right place if you’re into love with watching movies. Movies and TV serials are a fun area where people love to spend their leisure time. Making a visit to the cinema or movie theatre sometimes seems like a waste f time and money. In such a scenario, streaming movies online is left as an option as it helps you not only save time and money but also make things convenient. Imagine life when you get to watch movies at your fingertips and for free. Watch a movie, drama or a serial. All of it at your comfort. Along with that, complete information about TV shows is present on the site. That information is based on IMDB rating, director, release date, duration, synopsis of the episode, and cast. In short, it is regarded as one of the best websites to watch TV shows as well as movies from different origins. Film is a work of art in the form of a series of live images that are rotated to produce an illusion of moving images that are presented as a form of entertainment. The illusion of a series of images produces continuous motion in the form of video. The film is often referred to as a movie or moving picture. Film is a modern and popular art form created for business and entertainment purposes. Film making has now become a popular industry throughout the world, where feature films are always awaited by cinemas. Films are made in two main ways. The first is through shooting and recording techniques through film cameras. This method is done by photographing images or objects. The second uses traditional animation techniques. This method is done through computer graphic animation or CGI techniques. Both can also be combined with other techniques and visual effects. Filming usually takes a relatively long time. It also requires a job desk each, starting from the director, producer, editor, wardrobe, visual effects and others. Definition and Definition of Film / Movie While the players who play a role in the film are referred to as actors (men) or actresses (women). There is also the term extras that are used as supporting characters with few roles in the film. This is different from the main actors who have bigger and more roles. Being an actor and an actress must be demanded to have good acting talent, which is in accordance with the theme of the film he is starring in. In certain scenes, the actor’s role can be replaced by a stuntman or a stuntman. The existence of a stuntman is important to replace the actors doing scenes that are difficult and extreme, which are usually found in action action films. Films can also be used to convey certain messages from the filmmaker. Some industries also use film to convey and represent their symbols and culture. Filmmaking is also a form of expression, thoughts, ideas, concepts, feelings and moods of a human being visualized in film. The film itself is mostly a fiction, although some are based on fact true stories or based on a true story. There are also documentaries with original and real pictures, or biographical films that tell the story of a character. There are many other popular genre films, ranging from action films, horror films, comedy films, romantic films, fantasy films, thriller films, drama films, science fiction films, crime films, documentaries and others. That’s a little information about the definition of film or movie. The information was quoted from various sources and references. Hope it can be useful. >>> TV MOVIE >>> The first television shows were experimental, sporadic broadcasts viewable only within a very short range from the broadcast tower starting in the 1930s. Televised events such as the 1936 Summer Olympics in Germany, the 19340 coronation of King George VI in the UK, and David Sarnoff’s famous introduction at the 1939 New York World’s Fair in the US spurred a growth in the medium, but World War II put a halt to development until after the war. The 19440 World MOVIE inspired many Americans to buy their first television set and then in 1948, the popular radio show Texaco Star Theater made the move and became the first weekly televised variety show, earning host Milton Berle the name “”Mr Television”” and demonstrating that the medium was a stable, modern form of entertainment which could attract advertisers. The first national live television broadcast in the US took place on September 4, 1951 when President Harry Truman’s speech at the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference in San Francisco was transmitted over AT&T’s transcontinental cable and microwave radio relay system to broadcast stations in local markets. The first national color broadcast (the 1954 Tournament of Roses Parade) in the US occurred on January 1, 1954. During the following ten years most network broadcasts, and nearly all local programming, continued to be in black-and-white. A color transition was announced for the fall of 1965, during which over half of all network prime-time programming would be broadcast in color. The first all-color prime-time season came just one year later. In 19402, the last holdout among daytime network shows converted to color, resulting in the first completely all-color network season. >>> Formats and Genres >>> See also: List of genres § Film and television formats and genres Television shows are more varied than most other forms of media due to the wide variety of formats and genres that can be presented. A show may be fictional (as in comedies and dramas), or non-fictional (as in documentary, news, and reality television). It may be topical (as in the case of a local newscast and some made-for-television films), or historical (as in the case of many documentaries and fictional MOVIE). They could be primarily instructional or educational, or entertaining as is the case in situation comedy and game shows.[citation needed] A drama program usually features a set of actors playing characters in a historical or contemporary setting. The program follows their lives and adventures. Before the 1980s, shows (except for soap opera-type serials) typically remained static without story arcs, and the main characters and premise changed little.[citation needed] If some change happened to the characters’ lives during the episode, it was usually undone by the end. Because of this, the episodes could be broadcast in any order.[citation needed] Since the 1980s, many MOVIE feature progressive change in the plot, the characters, or both. For instance, Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere were two of the first American prime time drama television MOVIE to have this kind of dramatic structure,[4][better source needed] while the later MOVIE Babylon 5 further exemplifies such structure in that it had a predetermined story running over its intendevd five-season run.[citvatio””&n needed] In 2012, it was reported that television was growing into a larger component of major media companies’ revenues than film.[5] Some also noted the increase in quality of some television programs. In 2012, Academy-Award-winning film director Steven Soderbergh, commenting on ambiguity and complexity of character and narrative, stated: “”I think those qualities are now being seen on television and that people who want to see stories that have those kinds of qualities are watching television. >>> Thank’s For All And Happy Watching>>> Find all the movies that you can stream online, including those that were screened this week. If you are wondering what you can watch on this website, then you should know that it covers genres that include crime, Science, Fi-Fi, action, romance, thriller, Comedy, drama and Anime Movie. Thank you very much. We tell everyone who is happy to receive us as news or information about this year’s film schedule and how you watch your favorite films. Hopefully we can become the best partner for you in finding recommendations for your favorite movies. That’s all from us, greetings! Thanks for watching The Video Today. I hope you enjoy the videos that I share. Give a thumbs up, like, or share if you enjoy what we’ve shared so that we more excited. Sprinkle cheerful smile so that the world back in a variety of colors.”

Jan. 8, 2020: Columns

Cold water and olive oil...

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

Usually it is wintertime before I recount the story of the bitter cold day when I was at Harold’s Restaurant over on Hwy 115 just across the top of what for years was affectionately known as Liquor Hill in North Wilkesboro.

I had asked the late Harold Call for a Band-Aid for my sore thumb and he asked me what had happened to it. I told him I had bumped it on the car door as I got out coming into the restaurant and it was killing me-and that it would be killing me all winter. I went on to tell Harold that it was cracked open by the dry winter weather so badly it looked like there was a hot coal inside my thumb and I could even feel my heart beat in my thumb as I suffered.

And my mother knew, my daddy the preacher knew, my brothers know, and all my wives know–I do not suffer very well. And certainly not in silence.

Well, on that fateful day, Harold, or Dr. Call as we called him, smiled broadly, handed me a Band-Aid, and said, “All you have to do is wash your hands in cold water all winter and your problem will go away.”

That seemed just too easy, but it worked–perfectly–and changed my winters for all time. As time went on Harold relayed many home remedies to me that were simple, safe, and they worked. We lost our friend Harold Call a few years ago. He was a truly wonderful man and everyone who was fortunate enough to know him misses him every day.

Which brings me to today’s story:

Many times in this space I recount a visit from someone who stopped by The Record and Thursday Printing’s offices. Sometime back, a man who introduced himself as Fletcher Jones from Boomer stopped in. He immediately went to the banjo on the counter, a very rare short scale 5-string banjo, and picked it up. He held it like it was an infant and plunked out a few notes. We began to talk, and I learned he was a musician who could play many things including the piano. I, of course, love my piano, and asked him to play something for me. He held up his hands, and I could see that they were badly gnarled with arthritis, but he said he would try. After he played for a while, I remarked that I would have loved to hear him earlier, because, even with his crippled hands, he played remarkably well. Mr. Jones was a fascinating guy and I very much enjoyed our expanded visit that day.

Fast forward to several months later, and Mr. Jones returned. I felt sure it was him, but something was so different and I chose not to say his name. He didn’t mention his name again either, so finally I asked him to remind me who he was. “Why, Fletcher Jones,” he replied, “I’ve been in here before.” I assured him that I remembered him well, but frankly I remembered his hands looking markedly different before. He proudly held out both his hands and his fingers were in unbelievably better condition. I honestly do not know how to adequately describe the improvement.

When I asked him what he had done, he told me a story. He said that not long after he was in our office he was at a store holding the door open for his wife to enter. As he held the door a stranger noticed his twisted hand and asked if he could speak to him for a moment. That stranger told him to begin taking a large spoonful of olive oil each morning and his hands would very likely get better.

Skeptical, but willing to try most anything that appeared safe, he began the olive oil regimen. As the months passed by, his hands began to get better, and better. He said it was almost like a miracle, the transformation he had watched right before his very eyes, and went on to say he was planning to take a large spoonful of olive oil every day for the rest of his life.

His eyes sparked when I asked him to play my piano again, and he set it on fire. Truly it was a blessing to see Fletcher smile and play that day. I told him the “cracked fingers” story and about my friend Harold Call.

After he left I couldn’t help but think that Dr. Call would be proud of this one.

United we stand

By AMBASSADOR EARL COX and KATHLEEN COX

Special to The Record

Despite denials, for many years Iran has been hard at work building its nuclear infrastructure and perfecting it conventional weapons capabilities.  They’ve also been busy “winning friends and influencing others” as they form alliances with China, Russia, Syria and others who embrace their brand of Islam and their hatred of America.

Likewise, Israel has not been asleep at the wheel. Knowing that a serious confrontation with Iran was a distinct possibility, Israel has been training her army and air force to be mission capable at a moment’s notice and to be flexible enough to handle changing hostile environments without missing a beat. “Peace through strength” has always been the Israeli creed and it’s been backed up by their strong, and sometimes daring, actions.

In recent days, Iran put an $80 million dollar contract on the life of U.S. President Donald Trump for ordering the targeted killing of the world’s worst known terrorists, Qasem Solimani, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).  This took Iran by surprise and they have vowed to retaliate.  Furthermore, Iran has vowed to strike Israel if the United States retaliates against Iran for what they are threatening to send our way.  All of this rhetoric has placed Iran in a very precarious position because, in the Middle East, idle threats are a clear sign of weakness.  To save face, Iran must act.

Israel is fully prepared, armed and ready.  Iran will think twice before sending missiles in her direction.  In addition, when under threat, the people of Israel know the importance of forming a united front. For this reason, many Israelis are standing with Prime Minister Netanyahu despite the fact that he has been indicted (but not convicted) for alleged fraud, bribery and corruption.  Israel knows that united they stand.  America needs to learn this same lesson very, very quickly as Iran will exploit America’s division to America’s own detriment.  It’s time for the Democrats to put away their open and very public hatred for Trump and instead form a united front against America’s enemy.  There is no Democrat boat or Republican boat.  We are all in the same boat and it’s the one on which Iran has trained her sights. Divided we fall but, united we stand. 

The Don Gibson with Spiders and Snakes

By CARL WHITE

Life in the Carolinas  

Not so long ago, we were in production at the Don Gibson Theatre in Shelby, for one of our Carolina Theater Trail broadcast segments. The general idea of these segments is to highlight theaters in the Carolinas that have historical significance and are producing shows regularly.

The Don Gibson Theatre certainly meets our requirements. The Art Deco style building initially opened as the State Theater on October 27th, 1939. That was the same year that now-iconic movies such as The Yellow Brick Road, Gone with The Wind, Mr. Smith goes to Washington, The Hunch Back of Notre Dame, It’s a Wonderful Life and Stagecoach hit the big screen.

This was also a time when you had the opportunity to meet one of the stars at the theater possibly. It was great promotion for the theater and the movie. Just imagine going to the movies and meeting one of your favorite cowboy actors. It was quite the show for sure.

Things do change over the years, and so it was with the State Theater which would become The Flick theater in the mid-late '70s. The building would also have other lives before setting empty with an uncertain fate. That is until a group of concerned citizens came together to create a plan that would help revitalize the area and celebrate two of the area’s musical legends, Don Gibson and Earl Scruggs.

In time, the old courthouse on Shelby's town square would become the now-celebrated Earl Scruggs Center and the State Theater, with its Art Deco style, would become The Don Gibson Theatre that now hosts approximately 100 shows and events per year.

Stan Lowery, General Manager of the Don Gibson Theatre, shared that while there have been challenges, the victories have been far more significant. Stan recalled that the first movie he saw at the State Theater was the Jungle Book, which came out in 1967. Now that he books around 30 national acts a year for the Don Gibson Theatre, he sees firsthand the value of providing well know entertainment for the community.  

As it turns out, during the day of our production at the Don Gibson the evening’s entertainment was a Song Writer’s in the Round program featuring Jim Stafford, Walt Aldridge, and Lenny LeBlanc.

The three of them have written many well-known songs; however, it would be Jim Stafford that we would spend time with on camera.

While Jim is an excellent songwriter, he is also a great entertainer with dynamic timing. Our interview with Jim was a heartfelt and laughter filled walk down memory lane.

It’s hard to watch one of his television appearances and not smile or laugh when he sings one of his hits like Spiders and Snakes, Wildwood Weed or The Swamp Witch.

Regarding writing, he said he did not have a specific method or muse, it was “Butt powered; Sitting on your butt and just doing it.” The Jim Stafford Theatre in Branson Mo., has been going for over 30 years. Now in his mid-70’s, he still loves the music and putting on the show. He shared many great stories in our interview.

With all his years of writing and entertainment, I found it interesting that his appearance at the Don Gibson Theater was his first participation in a Song Writers in the Round performance. I ask him why he did it. He said, “Someone called, and it sounded like a good idea. So, I said yes, and here I am.”

As I watched the show at the Don Gibson, the three songwriters shared their stories and talents for an admiring audience, and I thought about all the people who have laughed, cried and set on the edge of their seats in anticipation as they watched the entertainment in front of them.

From the State Theater to the Don Gibson Theatre, you could not count the emotions if you tried but we can count ticket sales, and that’s a good thing.

 Carl White is the Executive Producer and Host of the award-winning syndicated TV show Carl White’s Life In The Carolinas. The weekly show is now in its 10th year of syndication and can be seen in the Charlotte market on WJZY Fox 46 Saturday’s at noon and My 12. The show also streams on Amazon Prime. For more information visit www.lifeinthecarolinas.com. You can email Carl at [email protected].

How the Washington Post’s TikTok became an unofficial 2020 campaign stop

Andrew Yang poses for a selfie. | Ethan Miller/Getty Images

For politicians, the buzziest new social video app presents a risk and an opportunity.

In 2015, Hillary Clinton was “yas queening” all over the internet. She had an official Snapchat account with a “Yaaas, Hillary!” logo that was also a T-shirt, a posed #yas photo with the stars of Broad City, custom Hillary Bitmoji, ironic cross-stitch art, and other signifiers of “yas” culture that’s since become emblematic of a certain kind of blinkered white feminism. An attempt to reach millennials with a passing familiarity with stan culture, it was also an extremely strategy easy to mock. As Amanda Hess wrote at the time in Slate, “American culture does not exactly appreciate the image of the ‘authentic’ older woman, but boy does it hate the older woman who strains to stay relevant.”

Hillary Clinton lost the election. That fact certainly can’t be attributed solely to a social media voice that many criticized as insincere and pandering, but it had a lasting impact on the ways we expect politicians to behave online.

It also might offer a clue on why so few politicians have a presence on the buzziest social media app of the moment, TikTok. Since its US launch in August 2018, the short-form video app has exploded in popularity, having been downloaded more than a billion times in 2018 and boasting 27 million active American users as of February 2019. Both Facebook and Instagram have launched competitors (or clones, depending on whom you ask), and celebrities like Will Smith, Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, and Reese Witherspoon are now flocking to the app en masse.

Politicians, meanwhile, have been understandably hesitant to hop on board. Like all social media apps, TikTok has its own vernacular, and any transgressions of that shared language and sensibility stick out like, well, septuagenarian politicians on a social media app meant for teens. The fear of coming off as insincere or being flooded with “ok boomer” comments is a real one. The other outcome? A TikTok presence that fails to leave a mark, like Julian Castro’s account, which currently only has 470 followers.

Still, that leaves an opportunity. Enter: the TikTok account of an equally stodgy publication that has, against all odds, managed to feel truly native to the TikTok ecosystem. It’s the Washington Post’s, which since its debut this spring has amassed a quarter-million followers and a legion of superfans who praise its goofy premises and unserious tone. So far, three candidates — Andrew Yang, Beto O’Rourke, and Julian Castro — have appeared on it.

The Washington Post’s TikTok’s success is the direct result of its creator and biggest star, 28-year-old Dave Jorgenson, who previously created humor and satire videos for the newspaper. A scroll through the Washington Post’s TikTok account will show Dave making self-deprecating jokes about being an adult on the app, Dave occupying the role of “the TikTok guy” in meetings, Dave doing silly 15-second sketches with the paper’s fashion, gaming, and economics reporters.

Jorgenson attributes the growth and fanbase of the account to his spending two months watching and listening to videos on TikTok instead of rushing to quickly turn around content. “If you’re gonna launch anything, whether you’re a newspaper or a brand or a company, you need to understand the app, otherwise people will see right through you,” he says. “Especially on TikTok, because the whole thing is that it’s mostly just raw videos set to music.”

The Washington Post, however, has what regular TikTok users don’t: access to very important people. In October, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang just happened to be scheduled to visit the Washington Post’s offices filming an unrelated segment when Jorgenson was able to strike a plan with Yang’s team about filming a TikTok.

Yang’s team was already a fan of the Post’s TikTok account; the campaign has also leaned heavily on the fact that he is a tech entrepreneur. “We didn’t really have to sell it to Andrew Yang,” says Jorgenson. “He was like, ‘If they think it’s great, I’m going to do it.’” It’s a particularly impressive feat considering the resulting video was actually poking fun at Yang’s low polling numbers. “Finally relaxing after a full day of interviews and meeting people,” reads the caption on the first segment, followed by “Still polling at 3 percent” against a backdrop of Yang dancing in celebration.

The paper has since done equally self-deprecating videos with both Beto O’Rourke, who ended his campaign on November 1, and Julian Castro, whose video was a play on how much he looks like his brother, Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro. All three videos took off, garnering between 40,000 and 400,000 likes.

Though neither Beto’s nor Castro’s team replied to a request for comment, Yang’s press secretary told Vox, “We’re constantly exploring ways to reach new audiences and voters, and the TikTok video with the Washington Post is certainly one of those ways.”

Since the election of Donald Trump proved politicians could tweet rambling, often nonsensical stream-of-consciousness sentences and still win over voters, politicians have approached social media with an increased candidness. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has posted her skin care routine to her Instagram stories; O’Rourke live-streamed his haircut; Elizabeth Warren posts videos of herself calling small-dollar donors to social media and makes a point to pose for every single person who wants a selfie after her town halls. In an age where we expect to be welcomed into the homes and lives of everyone we follow online, connecting with politicians has never felt so intimate.

Politicians have historically been pretty terrible at social media. A cursory glance at Mike Huckabee’s tweeting habits will illustrate as much — the former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate was once described by Fast Company as “the least funny person on Twitter.” Even cool-ish, young-ish presidential candidates are sometimes bad at tweeting. Cory Booker has made the same joke — a bit of PG-13 wordplay about coffee and sleep — 14 times over the past decade.

There are now more avenues than ever for politicians to embarrass themselves online. Instagram, for instance, has gained popularity among politicians faster than any other social media platform over the past few years, and was also the site of O’Rourke’s now-infamous live-streamed dentist appointment.

Aidan King, a senior strategist at Middle Seat consulting who has worked on presidential campaigns for both Bernie Sanders and O’Rourke, says that there’s a certain degree of apprehension in approaching any new social media platform. If candidates don’t know precisely who they’re speaking to, their message can be warped into something else. “There’s nothing worse for a political campaign than going viral for the wrong reasons,” he says.

TikTok, with its legions of irony-steeped teens, presents a specific danger. “The zoomers can be pretty ruthless, and it’s also clear which candidates they like a lot,” explains King. “Young people are really into Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, Elizabeth Warren, so I can understand why other candidates in the 2020 races just don’t really want to mess with [TikTok]. Joe Biden going on a platform that adores Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a recipe for disaster. They know the audience well enough to know they wouldn’t really get along with the people there.”

The Washington Post’s TikTok, though, is a controlled environment where candidates have little to lose, even when the content is unlike anything a political PR team would have typically come up with. “There’s just this very positive feeling around TikTok. Even if they are self-deprecating, they’re pretty wholesome,” Jorgenson says. “While the text in front of Andrew Yang was deprecating, it’s very funny. How could that hurt you?”

Jorgenson hopes to get every 2020 Democratic candidate in a video and has reached out to multiple candidates, but there is one white whale in particular. “I think if we get Bernie, then we have done our job, because I don’t know how we’re going to. But I’d be very proud of myself,” he laughs.

There are concerns over TikTok’s ties to the Chinese government (its parent company Bytedance is based in Beijing) and its willingness to bow to conservative governments by censoring pro-LGBTQ content, but the app has always wanted its content to remain politics-free. It recently announced it would ban political advertising out of a desire to remain a “positive, refreshing environment.” While nothing is stopping politicians from using the app, they may be hesitant to engage with one that will soon be under investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

It’s also likely it simply isn’t worth building a following on an app where a sizeable portion of its users aren’t even old enough to vote. For now, one-off sketches with the TikTok expert over at the Washington Post will do.

Sign up for The Goods’ newsletter. Twice a week, we’ll send you the best Goods stories exploring what we buy, why we buy it, and why it matters.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2ppxr5Y

How the Washington Post’s TikTok became an unofficial 2020 campaign stop

Andrew Yang poses for a selfie. | Ethan Miller/Getty Images

For politicians, the buzziest new social video app presents a risk and an opportunity.

In 2015, Hillary Clinton was “yas queening” all over the internet. She had an official Snapchat account with a “Yaaas, Hillary!” logo that was also a T-shirt, a posed #yas photo with the stars of Broad City, custom Hillary Bitmoji, ironic cross-stitch art, and other signifiers of “yas” culture that’s since become emblematic of a certain kind of blinkered white feminism. An attempt to reach millennials with a passing familiarity with stan culture, it was also an extremely strategy easy to mock. As Amanda Hess wrote at the time in Slate, “American culture does not exactly appreciate the image of the ‘authentic’ older woman, but boy does it hate the older woman who strains to stay relevant.”

Hillary Clinton lost the election. That fact certainly can’t be attributed solely to a social media voice that many criticized as insincere and pandering, but it had a lasting impact on the ways we expect politicians to behave online.

It also might offer a clue on why so few politicians have a presence on the buzziest social media app of the moment, TikTok. Since its US launch in August 2018, the short-form video app has exploded in popularity, having been downloaded more than a billion times in 2018 and boasting 27 million active American users as of February 2019. Both Facebook and Instagram have launched competitors (or clones, depending on whom you ask), and celebrities like Will Smith, Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, and Reese Witherspoon are now flocking to the app en masse.

Politicians, meanwhile, have been understandably hesitant to hop on board. Like all social media apps, TikTok has its own vernacular, and any transgressions of that shared language and sensibility stick out like, well, septuagenarian politicians on a social media app meant for teens. The fear of coming off as insincere or being flooded with “ok boomer” comments is a real one. The other outcome? A TikTok presence that fails to leave a mark, like Julian Castro’s account, which currently only has 470 followers.

Still, that leaves an opportunity. Enter: the TikTok account of an equally stodgy publication that has, against all odds, managed to feel truly native to the TikTok ecosystem. It’s the Washington Post’s, which since its debut this spring has amassed a quarter-million followers and a legion of superfans who praise its goofy premises and unserious tone. So far, three candidates — Andrew Yang, Beto O’Rourke, and Julian Castro — have appeared on it.

The Washington Post’s TikTok’s success is the direct result of its creator and biggest star, 28-year-old Dave Jorgenson, who previously created humor and satire videos for the newspaper. A scroll through the Washington Post’s TikTok account will show Dave making self-deprecating jokes about being an adult on the app, Dave occupying the role of “the TikTok guy” in meetings, Dave doing silly 15-second sketches with the paper’s fashion, gaming, and economics reporters.

Jorgenson attributes the growth and fanbase of the account to his spending two months watching and listening to videos on TikTok instead of rushing to quickly turn around content. “If you’re gonna launch anything, whether you’re a newspaper or a brand or a company, you need to understand the app, otherwise people will see right through you,” he says. “Especially on TikTok, because the whole thing is that it’s mostly just raw videos set to music.”

The Washington Post, however, has what regular TikTok users don’t: access to very important people. In October, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang just happened to be scheduled to visit the Washington Post’s offices filming an unrelated segment when Jorgenson was able to strike a plan with Yang’s team about filming a TikTok.

Yang’s team was already a fan of the Post’s TikTok account; the campaign has also leaned heavily on the fact that he is a tech entrepreneur. “We didn’t really have to sell it to Andrew Yang,” says Jorgenson. “He was like, ‘If they think it’s great, I’m going to do it.’” It’s a particularly impressive feat considering the resulting video was actually poking fun at Yang’s low polling numbers. “Finally relaxing after a full day of interviews and meeting people,” reads the caption on the first segment, followed by “Still polling at 3 percent” against a backdrop of Yang dancing in celebration.

The paper has since done equally self-deprecating videos with both Beto O’Rourke, who ended his campaign on November 1, and Julian Castro, whose video was a play on how much he looks like his brother, Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro. All three videos took off, garnering between 40,000 and 400,000 likes.

Though neither Beto’s nor Castro’s team replied to a request for comment, Yang’s press secretary told Vox, “We’re constantly exploring ways to reach new audiences and voters, and the TikTok video with the Washington Post is certainly one of those ways.”

Since the election of Donald Trump proved politicians could tweet rambling, often nonsensical stream-of-consciousness sentences and still win over voters, politicians have approached social media with an increased candidness. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has posted her skin care routine to her Instagram stories; O’Rourke live-streamed his haircut; Elizabeth Warren posts videos of herself calling small-dollar donors to social media and makes a point to pose for every single person who wants a selfie after her town halls. In an age where we expect to be welcomed into the homes and lives of everyone we follow online, connecting with politicians has never felt so intimate.

Politicians have historically been pretty terrible at social media. A cursory glance at Mike Huckabee’s tweeting habits will illustrate as much — the former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate was once described by Fast Company as “the least funny person on Twitter.” Even cool-ish, young-ish presidential candidates are sometimes bad at tweeting. Cory Booker has made the same joke — a bit of PG-13 wordplay about coffee and sleep — 14 times over the past decade.

There are now more avenues than ever for politicians to embarrass themselves online. Instagram, for instance, has gained popularity among politicians faster than any other social media platform over the past few years, and was also the site of O’Rourke’s now-infamous live-streamed dentist appointment.

Aidan King, a senior strategist at Middle Seat consulting who has worked on presidential campaigns for both Bernie Sanders and O’Rourke, says that there’s a certain degree of apprehension in approaching any new social media platform. If candidates don’t know precisely who they’re speaking to, their message can be warped into something else. “There’s nothing worse for a political campaign than going viral for the wrong reasons,” he says.

TikTok, with its legions of irony-steeped teens, presents a specific danger. “The zoomers can be pretty ruthless, and it’s also clear which candidates they like a lot,” explains King. “Young people are really into Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, Elizabeth Warren, so I can understand why other candidates in the 2020 races just don’t really want to mess with [TikTok]. Joe Biden going on a platform that adores Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a recipe for disaster. They know the audience well enough to know they wouldn’t really get along with the people there.”

The Washington Post’s TikTok, though, is a controlled environment where candidates have little to lose, even when the content is unlike anything a political PR team would have typically come up with. “There’s just this very positive feeling around TikTok. Even if they are self-deprecating, they’re pretty wholesome,” Jorgenson says. “While the text in front of Andrew Yang was deprecating, it’s very funny. How could that hurt you?”

Jorgenson hopes to get every 2020 Democratic candidate in a video and has reached out to multiple candidates, but there is one white whale in particular. “I think if we get Bernie, then we have done our job, because I don’t know how we’re going to. But I’d be very proud of myself,” he laughs.

There are concerns over TikTok’s ties to the Chinese government (its parent company Bytedance is based in Beijing) and its willingness to bow to conservative governments by censoring pro-LGBTQ content, but the app has always wanted its content to remain politics-free. It recently announced it would ban political advertising out of a desire to remain a “positive, refreshing environment.” While nothing is stopping politicians from using the app, they may be hesitant to engage with one that will soon be under investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

It’s also likely it simply isn’t worth building a following on an app where a sizeable portion of its users aren’t even old enough to vote. For now, one-off sketches with the TikTok expert over at the Washington Post will do.

Sign up for The Goods’ newsletter. Twice a week, we’ll send you the best Goods stories exploring what we buy, why we buy it, and why it matters.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2ppxr5Y

How the Washington Post’s TikTok became an unofficial 2020 campaign stop

Andrew Yang poses for a selfie. | Ethan Miller/Getty Images

For politicians, the buzziest new social video app presents a risk and an opportunity.

In 2015, Hillary Clinton was “yas queening” all over the internet. She had an official Snapchat account with a “Yaaas, Hillary!” logo that was also a T-shirt, a posed #yas photo with the stars of Broad City, custom Hillary Bitmoji, ironic cross-stitch art, and other signifiers of “yas” culture that’s since become emblematic of a certain kind of blinkered white feminism. An attempt to reach millennials with a passing familiarity with stan culture, it was also an extremely strategy easy to mock. As Amanda Hess wrote at the time in Slate, “American culture does not exactly appreciate the image of the ‘authentic’ older woman, but boy does it hate the older woman who strains to stay relevant.”

Hillary Clinton lost the election. That fact certainly can’t be attributed solely to a social media voice that many criticized as insincere and pandering, but it had a lasting impact on the ways we expect politicians to behave online.

It also might offer a clue on why so few politicians have a presence on the buzziest social media app of the moment, TikTok. Since its US launch in August 2018, the short-form video app has exploded in popularity, having been downloaded more than a billion times in 2018 and boasting 27 million active American users as of February 2019. Both Facebook and Instagram have launched competitors (or clones, depending on whom you ask), and celebrities like Will Smith, Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, and Reese Witherspoon are now flocking to the app en masse.

Politicians, meanwhile, have been understandably hesitant to hop on board. Like all social media apps, TikTok has its own vernacular, and any transgressions of that shared language and sensibility stick out like, well, septuagenarian politicians on a social media app meant for teens. The fear of coming off as insincere or being flooded with “ok boomer” comments is a real one. The other outcome? A TikTok presence that fails to leave a mark, like Julian Castro’s account, which currently only has 470 followers.

Still, that leaves an opportunity. Enter: the TikTok account of an equally stodgy publication that has, against all odds, managed to feel truly native to the TikTok ecosystem. It’s the Washington Post’s, which since its debut this spring has amassed a quarter-million followers and a legion of superfans who praise its goofy premises and unserious tone. So far, three candidates — Andrew Yang, Beto O’Rourke, and Julian Castro — have appeared on it.

The Washington Post’s TikTok’s success is the direct result of its creator and biggest star, 28-year-old Dave Jorgenson, who previously created humor and satire videos for the newspaper. A scroll through the Washington Post’s TikTok account will show Dave making self-deprecating jokes about being an adult on the app, Dave occupying the role of “the TikTok guy” in meetings, Dave doing silly 15-second sketches with the paper’s fashion, gaming, and economics reporters.

Jorgenson attributes the growth and fanbase of the account to his spending two months watching and listening to videos on TikTok instead of rushing to quickly turn around content. “If you’re gonna launch anything, whether you’re a newspaper or a brand or a company, you need to understand the app, otherwise people will see right through you,” he says. “Especially on TikTok, because the whole thing is that it’s mostly just raw videos set to music.”

The Washington Post, however, has what regular TikTok users don’t: access to very important people. In October, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang just happened to be scheduled to visit the Washington Post’s offices filming an unrelated segment when Jorgenson was able to strike a plan with Yang’s team about filming a TikTok.

Yang’s team was already a fan of the Post’s TikTok account; the campaign has also leaned heavily on the fact that he is a tech entrepreneur. “We didn’t really have to sell it to Andrew Yang,” says Jorgenson. “He was like, ‘If they think it’s great, I’m going to do it.’” It’s a particularly impressive feat considering the resulting video was actually poking fun at Yang’s low polling numbers. “Finally relaxing after a full day of interviews and meeting people,” reads the caption on the first segment, followed by “Still polling at 3 percent” against a backdrop of Yang dancing in celebration.

The paper has since done equally self-deprecating videos with both Beto O’Rourke, who ended his campaign on November 1, and Julian Castro, whose video was a play on how much he looks like his brother, Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro. All three videos took off, garnering between 40,000 and 400,000 likes.

Though neither Beto’s nor Castro’s team replied to a request for comment, Yang’s press secretary told Vox, “We’re constantly exploring ways to reach new audiences and voters, and the TikTok video with the Washington Post is certainly one of those ways.”

Since the election of Donald Trump proved politicians could tweet rambling, often nonsensical stream-of-consciousness sentences and still win over voters, politicians have approached social media with an increased candidness. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has posted her skin care routine to her Instagram stories; O’Rourke live-streamed his haircut; Elizabeth Warren posts videos of herself calling small-dollar donors to social media and makes a point to pose for every single person who wants a selfie after her town halls. In an age where we expect to be welcomed into the homes and lives of everyone we follow online, connecting with politicians has never felt so intimate.

Politicians have historically been pretty terrible at social media. A cursory glance at Mike Huckabee’s tweeting habits will illustrate as much — the former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate was once described by Fast Company as “the least funny person on Twitter.” Even cool-ish, young-ish presidential candidates are sometimes bad at tweeting. Cory Booker has made the same joke — a bit of PG-13 wordplay about coffee and sleep — 14 times over the past decade.

There are now more avenues than ever for politicians to embarrass themselves online. Instagram, for instance, has gained popularity among politicians faster than any other social media platform over the past few years, and was also the site of O’Rourke’s now-infamous live-streamed dentist appointment.

Aidan King, a senior strategist at Middle Seat consulting who has worked on presidential campaigns for both Bernie Sanders and O’Rourke, says that there’s a certain degree of apprehension in approaching any new social media platform. If candidates don’t know precisely who they’re speaking to, their message can be warped into something else. “There’s nothing worse for a political campaign than going viral for the wrong reasons,” he says.

TikTok, with its legions of irony-steeped teens, presents a specific danger. “The zoomers can be pretty ruthless, and it’s also clear which candidates they like a lot,” explains King. “Young people are really into Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, Elizabeth Warren, so I can understand why other candidates in the 2020 races just don’t really want to mess with [TikTok]. Joe Biden going on a platform that adores Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a recipe for disaster. They know the audience well enough to know they wouldn’t really get along with the people there.”

The Washington Post’s TikTok, though, is a controlled environment where candidates have little to lose, even when the content is unlike anything a political PR team would have typically come up with. “There’s just this very positive feeling around TikTok. Even if they are self-deprecating, they’re pretty wholesome,” Jorgenson says. “While the text in front of Andrew Yang was deprecating, it’s very funny. How could that hurt you?”

Jorgenson hopes to get every 2020 Democratic candidate in a video and has reached out to multiple candidates, but there is one white whale in particular. “I think if we get Bernie, then we have done our job, because I don’t know how we’re going to. But I’d be very proud of myself,” he laughs.

There are concerns over TikTok’s ties to the Chinese government (its parent company Bytedance is based in Beijing) and its willingness to bow to conservative governments by censoring pro-LGBTQ content, but the app has always wanted its content to remain politics-free. It recently announced it would ban political advertising out of a desire to remain a “positive, refreshing environment.” While nothing is stopping politicians from using the app, they may be hesitant to engage with one that will soon be under investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

It’s also likely it simply isn’t worth building a following on an app where a sizeable portion of its users aren’t even old enough to vote. For now, one-off sketches with the TikTok expert over at the Washington Post will do.

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