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frighthouseofalighthouse · 4 years

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I'M GONNA DO IT TO EM' ALL ASKS THAT YOU REBLOG TONIGHT TILL 10 AM TOMORROW.... DO THEM!!!!

Hey, you had to do it to ‘em! Here they are starting with the most recent.

“Weird asks that say a lot”

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans?

Coffee mugs because you can use them for everything. Teacups are too small for a proper cuppa.

2. chocolate bars or lollipops?

Chocolate bars always.

3. bubblegum or cotton candy?

Bubblegum, which I miss so much. I haven’t had it in over 2 years bc of my braces

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?

I didn’t go to public school but all the adults who dealt with me said I was sociable and tried to get everyone to do the group projects but no one listened so I ended up sitting alone reading and quietly doing the project.

5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups?

Glass BOTTLES make it taste superior.

6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear?

Pastel boho preppy goth best describes my style.

7. earbuds or headphones?

Earbuds, but only rubber tipped ones. The plastic ones never fit in my ears. Also headphones never cover my whole ear right. :/

8. movies or tv shows?

TV shows keep my attention span better.

9. favorite smell in the summer?

Brewing thunderstorms.

10. game you were best at in p.e.?

None. But trampoline if I had to pick.

11. what you have for breakfast on an average day?

Scrambled eggs, peanut butter toast, and some kind of fruit.

12. name of your favorite playlist?

My main one is Things You Love. My one for writing is Queen And Country, and my other two favorites are Summer Songs and A Queen Knows How To Fight A War.

13. lanyard or key ring?

Key ring, lanyards get in the way.

14. favorite non-chocolate candy?

Swedish Fish or Sour Patch Kids.

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?

OH MAN. To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Fahrenheit 451, The Grapes Of Wrath, and The Handmaid’s Tale were definitely my top 5 in English class.

16. most comfortable position to sit in?

Curled up sideways in an armchair with my legs slung over the arm. Sitting normally sucks.

17. most frequently worn pair of shoes?

Either pair of my black boots, or my pink floral Skechers that I wear to work.

18. ideal weather?

60 degrees, cloudy, windy, with a chance of rain.

19. sleeping position?

On my right side, arms around a fluffy pillow, one leg out straight and the other drawn up with my knee to my chest.

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?

Laptop. I’m trying to exercise my hand and wrist so I don’t tire as quick of notebook writing, though.

21. obsession from childhood?

History, Nancy Drew books, Harry Potter, and ghost stories.

22. role model?

The person I am but don’t think I am.

23. strange habits?

Pulling my shirt collar up over my nose and mouth/putting it in my mouth and chewing on it.

24. favorite crystal?

Amethyst, my birthstone! Close second is blue goldstone. (Have you ever seen it? It looks like the universe. I have a worrystone made of blue goldstone and it’s one of my prized possessions.)

25. first song you remember hearing?

Something from church probably. Outside of church probably one of these: If I Had A Hammer // Peter, Paul and Mary, Puff The Magic Dragon // Peter, Paul and Mary, Scarborough Fair // Simon & Garfunkel, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald // Gordon Lightfoot.

26. favorite activity to do in warm weather?

Sit in the shade.

27. favorite activity to do in cold weather?

Drink tea, read, and play either Pokemon or Nancy Drew and the Clue Benders Society on my 3DS.

28. five songs to describe you?

The Pines // Roses & Revolutions, I Am Here // Pink, Walk Me Home // Pink, Call Home // Heathers (not the musical), Traveler’s Song // Aviators

29. best way to bond with you?

Talk to me about history, crime, musicals, books, or tv shows

30. places that you find sacred?

Natural swamps. Libraries. Old, overgrown gardens. Anywhere historic. Pine forests at dusk. Anywhere under a clear night sky.

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names?

A plaid shirt, black leggings, and black boots with dark neutral lipstick and a black choker.

32. top five favorite vines?

Fre she vocado, BENTLEY NOOOOO, uhhh I sure hope it does, the one of Lin Manuel-Miranda trying to brainstorm, and this bitch empty YEEt

33. most used phrase in your phone?

Idk how to find this out

34. advertisements you have stuck in your head?

Idk if this is just a local thing here but WOW ITS NATURESTONE

35. average time you fall asleep?

12-1 nowadays.

36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing?

I can haz cheezburger

37. suitcase or duffel bag?

Depends. Suitcase for things like my laptop that are better protected than in a duffel bag, but duffel bag otherwise because they’re easier to carry.

38. lemonade or tea?

TEAAAAA

39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie?

Both please

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

My house? We had a safe word when we did math. It was “quokka.” If we got overwhelmed we’d say it and then stop and look at pictures of quokkas.

41. last person you texted?

My friend and coworker.

42. jacket pockets or pants pockets?

Jacket pockets.

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?

Cardigan or hoodie

44. favorite scent for soap?

Lavender

45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero?

Fantasy. It takes me a bit to get into fantasy books usually, but sci-fi is hard to follow and superhero is mostly predictable.

46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in?

Fuzzy pants and a t shirt

47. favorite type of cheese?

Muenster, parmesan, or goat cheese

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?

Raspberry

49. what saying or quote do you live by?

“I have no country to fight for. My country is the earth, and I am a citizen of this world.” - Eugene V. Debs

50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have?

A weird local political ad a couple years back.

51. current stresses?

My recent breakup, an overnight shift I work on Wednesday night, and trying to find time to go out to a corn maze with my friend.

52. favorite font?

Baskerville or Georgia.

53. what is the current state of your hands?

Covered in small cuts and scrapes from work, nails picked short, black nail polish mostly peeled off.

54. what did you learn from your first job?

babysitting job: Kids suck never have more than one. Retail job: being on your fee it hardddd

55. favorite fairy tale?

Beauty and the Beast or Rapunzel

56. favorite tradition?

Looking at Halloween decorations

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome?

Cutting, being manipulated by my dad, and letting other people make me believe I wasn’t good enough (still working on that one)

58. four talents you’re proud of having?

Writing, puzzle-solving, singing, and calligraphy

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

“Oh shit waddup”

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?

One of those preppy gothic private school animes with a dark secret lurking around the corner

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

Book: “Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance. You have to work at it.” - The Handmaid’s Tale. Movie: “It’s not about deserve. It’s about what you believe. And I believe in love.” - Wonder Woman. TV Show: “I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself.” - Doctor Who.

62. seven characters you relate to?

Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood, Remus Lupin, Richard Gansey III, Blue Sargent, Dean Winchester, Charlie Bradbury.

63. five songs that would play in your club?

Same five that I said describe me.

64. favorite website from your childhood?

Webkinz and the old American Girl site circa 2009.

65. any permanent scars?

One down my chest from heart surgery as a baby, lots from self harm on my arms/legs, some on my left knee from falling as a kid, and one on the back of my right heel from being pecked by a goose at the fair when I was 11.

66. favorite flower(s)?

Sunflowers, roses, and dahlias.

67. good luck charms?

Myself.

68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried?

Ranch anything.

69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned?

Jellyfish have no brains and no heart.

70. left or right handed?

I’m third generation left handed!

71. least favorite pattern?

Vertical stripes.

72. worst subject?

Math.

73. favorite weird flavor combo?

Wendy’s fries and chocolate frosty.

74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen?

7. Usually I just ignore it because I have a “high pain tolerance” (which means I like to put myself through minor pains because I think I deserve it)

75. when did you lose your first tooth?

Age 5. I was trying to blow up an inflatable ball and it came out.

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

ALL POTATOES EXCEPT POTATO SALAD

77. best plant to grow on a windowsill?

Violets.

78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store?

Neither, both suck equally.

79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo?

Never had a school id so I guess the license

80. earth tones or jewel tones?

Earth tones for me

81. fireflies or lightning bugs?

...They are literally the same thing

82. pc or console?

83. writing or drawing?

Writing. I absolutely cannot draw.

84. podcasts or talk radio?

Podcasts, talk radio is so obnoxious.

84. barbie or polly pocket?

Barbie. The clothes are easier to take on and off. I used to accidentally rip polly pocket clothes all the time.

85. fairy tales or mythology?

Mythology. I like it because it explains things, it’s creation stories, its origins. Fairy tales are just fantasies or cautionary tales.

86. cookies or cupcakes?

Cookies.

87. your greatest fear?

Rejection, drowning, and clowns.

88. your greatest wish?

To be a semi-successful author and historian.

89. who would you put before everyone else?

My mom.

90. luckiest mistake?

Not succeeding in killing myself!

91. boxes or bags?

Bags.

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?

Dim lamps if they have yellow bulbs. I hate white lights. And also fairy lights yes please.

93. nicknames?

Ellie, Ell, Little Lion, Lioness.

94. favorite season?

FALLLLL

95. favorite app on your phone?

Tumblr, Spotify, or Instagram.

96. desktop background?

97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized?

98. favorite historical era?

Revolutionary War-era America or late Victorian England.

THIS GOT REALLY LONG AND I DONT WANNA HIT THE TEXT BLOCK LIMIT SO IMMA DO ALL THE HALLOWEEN ONES SEPARATELY, MAYBE IN THE MORNING.

#a series of essays anonymously published

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fullregalia · 5 years

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gonna sit right down and write myself a newsletter.

In the “Things Happen” section of Friday’s Money Stuff, the last link was a meta one, leading to an essay about living in a time of peak newsletter.

At first, I was just going to tweet about how I thought it was meta. But then I wanted to follow it up with some actual opinions, and instead of tweeting it, I decided to try and form a cohesive essay, because I think the monetized newsletter boom is indicative of the media’s larger identity/consolidation crisis, reflecting not only internet culture, but also the financial instability of the sector. So here’s a completely unsolicited take about it all on this blob because I need to shout my opinions into the void, and don’t have any subscribers!

My love affair with the newsletter probably started back in 2013 with Today in Tabs, which I still miss dearly. (My love affair with email began, well, duh.) I came to Tabs because I was Extremely Online while working at the Guggenheim and NYC Media Twitter has always been my default Twitter. [Side note: I believe the dynamics of NYC Media Twitter is fodder for an “On Smarm” style analysis, but that is not for me to write. For many years I basically unfollowed all of the NYC Media Twitter people and I was much happier. Now I only follow the nice, smart, and funny ones. They--to borrow a phrase from a bespectacled ghoul--make life worth living... along with all the Potato Head Blues, of course.] Tabs was funny and became a daily talking point on Media Twitter, but Rusty Foster clearly got burnt out on it, and who could blame him.

I think it also became such a big thing because it filled the void that the waning independent blogs, or toxic comments sections and 140 character dispatches couldn’t; pithy and personal, you felt like you were interacting privately with your friend. For those of us who do not produce content for a living, or who aren’t really a part of the twitter conversation, blogs aren't dead. (TBH though I’m bearish that Tyler Cowen is right about that.) I post exclusively superfluous takes here, which exist in a vacuum. And if there’s one rule of nature we can all agree on, it is that content providers abhor a vacuum! In the intervening years, so many more newsletters have popped up, either by freelance writers or through formal media companies, realizing that with paywalls and the noise of twitter, a direct-to-consumer model might work more effectively.

The dynamic of audience and author interaction has changed over the years as social media encourages writers to be a brand and build a following. Steady staff jobs are fewer and farther between, and even with increasing union protections, the idea of a side gig newsletter holds appeal, especially if you already have a list. Whenever I listen to the Longform podcast, I am most interested in hearing journalists talk about how the sausage gets made (Taffy Brodesser-Akner and Helen Rosner have been candid about the financial aspects of their work.) I think that the newsletter provides the freedom of personal voice as an area to experiment or workshop ideas more informally, combined with the protection of email as a medium. A person has to subscribe (or even pay) to receive your newsletter and while they can email you to lodge a complaint, it doesn’t immediately have to devolve into an ad hominem canoe. (This is the internet though, no one is safe!)

Twitter certainly encourages dialogue for better or--usually--worse, but I rarely use it for more than putting unsolicited observations into the void (eg. thrilling, effete stuff: “I like John Coltrane,” or, “clouds good today”). Then there’s the problem of time and monetization. As Jia Tolentino recently wrote about the attention economy: “For journalists, Twitter, in particular, functions as an increasingly familiar form of contemporary labor: paid in exposure, pitched as fun.” We only have so much bandwidth. Newsletters like DealBook Briefing (New York Times, free) or Five Things to Start Your Day (Bloomberg, free) not only give you a digestible take, but also do it free of charge while the websites have a paywall--though “free” isn’t really free since of course the newsletters link you to enough articles to hit your monthly limit in one day.

And here’s where we get to the “time is a flat circle” part of my spiel: I think the natural conclusion of the newsletter boom is that it started indie, is getting mainstream, but will prove possibly unsustainable and will eventually become absorbed by major companies, consolidated into the old form of media. If you do derive your income and have an audience a newsletter is great.... but not everyone can afford to subscribe to 10 different newsletters for $5 a month. Similarly to the streaming platforms all basically becoming cable (truly, who among us is like HBO Max run me over with a truck!!!!), I think that newsletters will just become, well, another property in the portfolio of the few remaining blue-chip digital publications, looking increasingly like a digital magazine. (Let’s save the podcast economy essay for later.)

Aside from my unsolicited media landscape take, on a personal note, I keep on doing this modest blog for an audience of one because I work in publishing, am still too online for my own good, and it’s an outlet to brainstorm and share the writing of others that I think is superlative (when I’m not writing about baked goods). I will, of course, continue to subscribe to myriad newsletters, and try to support the journalists who I actually interact with in the real world. Perhaps we will all weather this content storm together and come out on the other side with some antitrust policy. At least we can vent about it out here in the meantime. The internet, boy, I don’t know.

#blogs #meta #money stuff #newsletters #internet #twitter #attention economy #matt levine #jia tolentino #longform #today in tabs #tabs #the internet boy i don't know #capitalism #time is a flat circle and so is the publishing industry #podcasts are just radio

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