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ettawritesnstudies · 4 years

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Etta’s big creative to do list for when I’m not drowning in final exams

(the rest are below the cut because this got LONG! I am putting this here so you have some idea of the stuff I’ll be posting about come Monday 5/11 and also so I can find it again instead of putting it in my notebook where it will inevitably get lost among my fluids practice and history essay jottings. if you’re curious about the fact that I am not yet done with my semester, yes, I am absolutely procrastinating an essay right now by writing this. don’t worry about it.)

FINISH STORGE!! I’m only like 3 chapters away from writing The End and I desperately want to do that this year so I can edit and start sharing snippets with alpha readers by this time next year at the latest :D

Outline the Laoche Chronicles

this includes the trilogy outline in broad strokes to make sure everything sets up the next points

a detailed outline for the first book which will need a name eventually

(my outlining process can be found here!)

Character profiles for all the new OCs

(this process can be found in this post!

worldbuilding write-up questionnaire for the new civilizations that’ll feature in the main trilogy and differ from Storge

Learn how to make edits for tumblr because graphic design and anything resembling Proper Authors Platform Branding continue to elude me

This won’t happen this month, but I need to do a cleanout of the social media’s I do have so I can put writing stuff there too and start a proper Author’s Internet Presence. If I do finish Storge this year, I’ll be looking for beta readers eventually and I need to have something to show for myself. This includes...

doing a mass edit of this blog and organizing my tags

teaching myself HTML/CSS and making a custom blog theme that works for my needs or commissioning someone to do this for me

making a Laoche Chronicles wip page

buying a domain and designing an actual authors website

making an #aesthetictrash book Instagram? I’m vaguely aware this is something people do but I only use insta for it’s chat feature with my college friends so I know not the first thing about how that works

I have a disasterous Pinterest that’s 100% private boards for my various bits of nonsense that needs to be turned into a place to showcase WIP aesthetics

I refuse to touch twitter nor facebook nor snapchat nor ticktock with a fifteen foot pole

if you couldn’t tell by now, I was that kid who had a brick trac-phone until 10th grade, and used my smartphone primarily as a music device until very recently

Write a considerable backlog for my Newsies fanfic so I don’t fall behind whenever I go to my internship in a month

Finish the intro for my Vampire Plague Doctor Buddy Cop story and the Chaotic SFF Academia idea that I started last month, and write a few one shots for those Maybe start posting them somewhere if I’m happy with how they turn out?

Make a proper quilt from the 10389238320923 old event t-shirts I have sitting in a pile in the basement so I can take it to college with me in the fall. (also maybe mockup a walking skirt out of an old sheet, so I at least have an idea of what to do whenever proper fabric stores open again)

It’s going to be below freezing tomorrow for SOME REASON despite being MID- MAY, but I need to plant my garden and make a compost pile at some point

Make a list of art skills to start practicing so I can tackle the concept of “learning to draw” in a logical manner like you would in a class, and start doing these drills

Also participate in the rest of MerMay

Read a few books! My current next list of TBR looks like this

Illthdar! I have been dying to get my hands on @illthdar‘s book but I didn’t want to start it during the school year and then have to inevitably put it down like two chapters in because I had boring real life obligations to attend to, so this is my first read for as soon as I’m done with the semester on Sunday.

Pride and Prejudice, which I've heard is excellent and regrettably not actually read yet (nor any of Austen, yes I’m a heretic I know, but I’m also an engineering student and 90% of my time is spent doing maths)

Storm of Fire and Blood - I have had this book for a year and put it down because of school which is a crying shame because I really love this series! For any religious/historical fiction fans I highly recommend the Sword and Serpent trilogy! It’s a retelling of the story of St. George and the Dragon long before he’s ever a saint. I think anyone could enjoy it, but if you’re Catholic or enjoy early Christian history, you’ll get a lot of the references and saint cameos and it’s just! A lot of fun!!

also my patron St. Katherine of Alexandria is a major character in the 2nd and 3rd books and she’s absolutely wonderful so I might be just a little bit biased

Make a few watercolor maps of the world of Laoche! Including detailed maps of the city of Maaren where Storge takes place, and Arga (one of the countries in the later trilogy)

update my bullet journal which has been languishing unused on my dresser since march when I moved home from college

Carve new dulcimer hammers and teach myself a few songs. (also maybe try to make a longbow or new bridges for the dulcimer but that’s all probably a BIT of a stretch)

Brush up on my piano and guitar practice because I am very very rusty. I need to find some new songs to learn because I don’t really want to relearn Debussy or Chopin again, but I need to find some good ones first...

If you’re still reading this. Wow. Congratulations. That was a lot. and thank you! But yeah! This is what’s been knocking around in my head recently while I was supposed to be studying, but now that it is out of my head and into a post hopefully I will be able to focus again :P This is extremely ambitious and I 100000% will not be able to finish everything on this list, but! it is a plan! Wish me luck!

#etta rambles #to do #planning #things to do after finals #creative to do

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timboallthetime · 5 years

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From Wired.com author Paris Martineau

TUMBLR WAS NEVER explicitly a space for porn, but, like most things on the internet, it is chock full of it anyway. Or at least it was. On Monday, to the shock of the millions of users who had used the microblogging site to consume and share porn GIFs, images, and videos, Tumblr banned the “adult content” that its CEO, David Karp, had defended five years prior. In the hours after the announcement, sex workers panicked, users threatened to leave, and—in classic Tumblr fashion—online petitions calling for change gained hundreds of thousands of signatures. But Tumblr’s porn ban isn’t about porn or Tumblr at all, really. It’s about the companies and institutions who wield influence over what does and doesn’t appear online.

When Melissa Drew, an adult content creator and model, logged in to Tumblr Monday afternoon, she was greeted by a deluge of unfamiliar posts and notifications. Her usual feed, perfectly curated after nearly a decade of tinkering, was awash with panicked posts from fellow adult models, memes about the policy change, and goodbye posts. Drew’s personal blog, which she had relied on as a public-facing way to tease the content available to her Patreon subscribers, was lit up with notifications from Tumblr informing her that most of her posts violated the new rules.

When Yahoo bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion in 2013, critics warned that premium advertisers wouldn't exactly be clamoring to run ads in a sea of porn. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer disagreed, arguing that targeting tools would keep content that isn't "brand-safe" (read: porn) away from ads. In an interview shortly after the acquisition, Karp doubled down on the platform’s openness to porn. “When you have … any number of very talented photographers posting tasteful photography,” said Karp, “I don't want to have to go in there to draw the line between this photo and the behind the scenes photo of Lady Gaga and like, her nip."

But the nip line has indeed been drawn, and it’s a doozy. Though Tumblr’s Monday announcement had technically only prohibited depictions of sex acts, “human genitalia,” and “female-presenting nipples,” a much wider swath of Drew’s feed was quickly caught up in the ban. “I had everything from nude, censored nudity, and lingerie photos flagged,” she told WIRED. “I still haven’t dealt with removing all of them yet—I just sort of heavy sighed and closed the tab.”

Safe Space

In interviews and messages with WIRED, more than 30 sex workers, porn consumers, and creators on Tumblr lamented the loss of what they described as a unique, safe space for curated sexually themed GIFs, photos, and videos. Many users who had used the microblogging site as their primary source for porn were at a loss when asked where they would go after Tumblr’s ban on “adult content” goes into effect on December 17. For the thousands of sex workers who used the site to share their own explicit content in a controlled, relatively contained manner—not to mention the countless others who used that content to fill the hyper-curated feeds of some of the site’s most popular porn blogs—the crackdown’s consequences are even more difficult to unpack. And researchers say the ban could shrink Tumblr’s user base, which already appears in turmoil over the decision.

The move comes less than two weeks after Apple pulled Tumblr from the iOS App Store after child pornography was found on the site. Though the offending illegal content was removed quickly, according to Tumblr, the app has yet to return to the App Store (it was never removed from the Google Play Store). In its most recent blog post, Tumblr stated that its longstanding no-tolerance policy against child pornography should not be conflated with the move to ban adult content. The latter, Tumblr argued, was inspired by a drive to create “a better Tumblr.” But these sorts of decisions aren’t made in a vacuum.

In March, Congress passed the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act and the Stop Online Sex Trafficking Act (or FOSTA-SESTA for short). Lawmakers hailed the law as a means to give prosecutors more tools to combat combat sex trafficking. But the statute also tinkered with a bedrock provision of internet law, opening the door for platforms to be held criminally and civilly liable for the actions of their users. The law’s passage immediately led to the closure of several sex-work-related online venues, such as Craigslist’s personals section, numerous subreddits, and Patreon’s support for adult creators.

In interviews, more than a dozen sex workers told WIRED that the support and openness of adult-content creators on Tumblr had attracted them to the site. They described the site as notably more empowering and friendly than more traditional venues for explicit content, like PornHub, and relished Tumblr’s freedom and opportunity for virality. Many used the site to promote their paid content on other sites, interact with fellow sex workers, and screen clients.

Liara Roux, a sex worker and online political organizer, told WIRED via email that the options for finding adult content online are diminishing, and consolidating with big companies “and away from community generated content and independent creator friendly platforms." This, Roux says, is dangerous: "As mainstream sites slowly remove sexual content, which often is how queer and other marginalized communities are able to connect, it will become difficult for both sex workers and these communities to have an online space to exist."

App Store Sway

The ubiquity of the App Store gives Apple considerable influence over online content. Historically, Apple has taken a sex-negative approach to policing, with former CEO Steve Jobs once famously stating that “folks who want porn can buy an Android phone,” but the company’s influence extends beyond the iOS sphere. In the days after it was delisted from the App Store, Tumblr ramped up its moderation efforts, erroneously deleting numerous SFW and NSFW Tumblr accounts unrelated to child exploitation and abuse, and pushed out an update for its Android app that forced all users to have “safe mode” toggled on, restricting access to explicit content. Then came the porn ban.

Apple’s App Store review guidelines prohibit apps "with user-generated content or services that end up being used primarily for pornographic content.” The key word here is “primarily,” as all popular social media platforms are rife with porn, but Apple mostly seems to care about how easily accessible it is. Case in point: Apple pulled a number of Reddit apps from the App Store in 2016, citing issues with an NSFW content toggle, which, when activated, could be used to view pornographic content. The iOS Reddit apps currently available on the App Store have built-in features that prohibit porn subreddits from appearing in search, and make it extremely difficult for users to find NSFW content in-app without labor-intensive workarounds.

Tumblr likely could have instituted a similar content-censorship-based workaround, but it didn’t. Instead, it has gone with what appears to be an all-out-ban of “photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content—including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations—that depicts sex acts.” Photos of nipples that appear to belong to a female-identifying person—which may be a difficult category to define, judging by the attempts of other platforms, like Instagram, to do the same—may be permitted so long as they are shared as part of a non-sexual context like a post showcasing breastfeeding, pre- or post-birth, post-mastectomy, or gender confirmation surgery. Written erotic content, along with nudity in art—“such as sculptures and illustrations,” says Tumblr—are alright, too. To draw the distinctions, the company says it will use a mix of machine learning and human moderation, and that all appeals for posts erroneously flagged as adult will be reviewed by “real, live human eye(s).”

Tumblr users are already finding problems with the flagging system. Classical paintings of Jesus Christ were flagged, as were photos and GIFs of fully clothed people, patents for footwear, line drawings of landscape scenes, discussions about LGBTQ+ issues and more. “In its early stages, Tumblr is using a poor system for flagging content,” says Abigail Oakley, a researcher at Arizona State University with a focus on Tumblr communities. “Having a certain number of flags on your blog (regardless of their validity) also removes the blog from Google searches, which is another form of censorship.”

Casey Fiesler, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado who specializes in fandom culture on platforms like Tumblr, thinks Tumblr’s crackdown will likely lead to a mass exodus of users. Fielser also worries that the LGBTQ people and sexual assault survivors who use Tumblr as a space for support could inadvertently be affected by the ban. “Even for fandom participants who don't create adult content themselves, this kind of policy feels like an attack on the community,” she said.

Consumers and creators of porn on Tumblr aren't entirely sure where they'll go next. While many sex workers mentioned Reddit and Twitter as two popular alternatives, they lamented the platforms' lack of community and sex-positive culture. Similarly, more than a dozen people who said they had used Tumblr as their primary source of porn for years praised the site's social, judgment-free culture, which many cited as helping them understand their sexual orientation. "The technology is out there to allow users to continue browsing a variety of porn from independent producers, but it will require a shift back in how people think of the internet," said Roux, the sex worker and political organizer. "I'm hoping these kinds of controversies encourage content creators to take as much control over their distribution channels as possible and inspires tech companies to solve the issue of bringing content to users without hosting the content themselves."

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neeraj657 · 4 years

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What are the most significant social media platforms for business?

The default position for online life showcasing is by all accounts of Facebook. While Facebook is verifiably significant, we should pile it up to different stages with regards to our definitive objective of structure a noteworthy group of spectators. In this examination, I am covering the top internet based life stages dependent on visits, in addition to a couple of others like Slideshare and Meerkat for entertainment only. Here's my investigation:

If you somehow managed to draw a bolt from the lower-left quadrant (low time required, low group of spectators possession) to the upper right quadrant (high time required and high crowd proprietorship), it would likewise exhibit a valuable continuum of the less mind-boggling substance to progressively complex substance necessities.

Streaming video is hot at this moment however now the class is to some degree constrained in its capacity to accomplish solid reach. You can stream live from an occasion or from your home however the test is continuing a crowd of people since who you reach is reliant on who is accessible at that time.

In any case, watch out for this space. I thoroughly consider time, these stages will improve in their capacity to make dependable reach as clients make sense of innovative new utilizes for routinely booked programming and notwithstanding coordinating with customary media. Of the considerable number of stages recorded here, I think this one has the most potential to move to one side as far as continuing a significant group of spectators.

Many individuals still love to visit old fashioned gatherings and Q&A destinations like Yahoo Answers. Late look into from Edison proposes that a greater number of individuals visit discussions than web journals. Anyway, a gathering is to some degree constrained in making a maintainable and significant group of spectators. You may respond to inquiries for a completely new group of spectators each time you visit the site. For this situation, Yahoo truly claims the crowd, not you.

Twitter isn't as basic as it may show up. In spite of the fact that you are restricted to 140 characters, it tends to be very troublesome making something significant in that little space.

Twitter remains solitary in its capacity to make an enormous, important crowd rapidly, however since you can't target gatherings of devotees with messages (in any event yet), it once in a while feels like you are tossing a message out to a major quiet world. The stage is incredible at making starting associations that can prompt solid reach on another stage like a blog or digital recording.

One of the reasons this stage is so prevalent is that it is so natural to utilize. Snap a photograph and post. Indeed it is most likely one of a kind among stages in its chance to make an association with generally little work. Another bit of leeway is that there is no course of events altering. Each supporter has an equivalent shot of seeing what you post. Be that as it may, similar to Twitter, your substance is to some degree transient as it gradually sinks to the base of the news source.

Pinterest is the main stage in the case of "low work, high reach." Primarily, you are making a group of spectators esteem by curating content (as opposed to making content) from different sources on the web into consistent pages that will move and engage. What's more, on the off chance that you work admirably with curation, you can assemble a steadfast group of spectators. One indication of the stage's capacity to make a functioning group of spectators is that "stuck" things drive more web traffic than some other stage.

Facebook resembles betting enslavement. You continue placing increasingly more cash into it on the grounds that the possibility of a tremendous result is so inebriating. You can't overlook the Facebook customer service number. It's immense and prominent yet from multiple points of view, it's the most troublesome stage to explore.

To truly succeed, you should be a conversational brand or turned out to be one (difficult or modest).

It requires a great deal of cash and exertion to construct a group of people — yet then Facebook fends off you from them. Facebook customer service toll-free number seriously confines access to your crowd. Peruse this post on the decrease in Facebook's natural reach to become familiar with that.

While Facebook appears to be straightforward (and free!) it's definitely not. To get your substance on to a course of events, you presumably need to spend a ton of value, advancement, or both.

On the off chance that you are a VIP or an adored and built up the brand in your locale, Facebook may be perfect. In the event that you are a local organization that takes unsafe waste, perhaps not. Thus, it's hard to place it in any one spot on this graph. There are such huge numbers of entangling factors.

Reddit has an unrivaled number of substance driven networks. It's sort of a mix of Google+, Forums, and blogging. Like G+, individuals are enthusiastic about the stage and their networks. Like discussions, individuals will put everything on the line to help one another, and like blogging, there is an accentuation on provocative, unique substance. There are Reddit people groups for practically any theme yet disregard advancing your neighborhood pizza business. Any type of business show is probably going to get you kicked out.

most significant web-based social networking stages for business LinkedIn — A year prior, LinkedIn would have been down low in the "low work-low group of spectators" obstructing Twitter. Certainly, it's an extraordinary spot to search for a vocation however there simply was very little socialization going on there. Presently, any part can utilize LinkedIn as a blogging gathering and tap into the potential presence of LinkedIn's tremendous crowd.

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airadam · 5 years

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Episode 121 : X

"...celebrate like a crooked capitalist..."

- Mr. Voodoo

The podcast reaches a huge landmark this month - the tenth birthday! Thank you to all of you for your support along the way. It's not easy to put together a show month after month, but when I hear from people how much they enjoy listening (especially when they've gone out and bought some of the records), it makes it all worth it.

I hope you enjoy this month's show - there are some rarities, some obscurities, and a bit of an extra-special treat! I've dipped into the vaults for some real personal favourites, so hopefully they're loved outside of the confines of my headphones!

Twitter : @airadam13

Playlist/Notes

Run-DMC : For 10 Years

Only a short one, from their comeback "Down With The King" LP - when else was I going to have a chance to play it? :)

Natural Elements : Live It Up

Big 12" from my university days, a period when Natural Elements were already making themselves one of my all-time favourite crews. This track from the soundtrack to the not-particularly-notable film "Black Mask" was also on the B-side to the also-excellent "2 Tons", and that's a vinyl you should be able to pick up very cheaply nowadays on the used market. Charlemagne (the real one) is on the beat, and as with all NE tracks, lyrical quality is guaranteed and delivered.

[Nick Wiz] Shabaam Sahdeeq ft. Cocoa Brovaz : Every Rhyme I Write (Instrumental)

I was almost going to include the vocal version of this track (known to most from the "Soundbombing 2" mixtape), until it twigged how well the beat mixed with the NE track before it. Nick Wiz of that era was a master of blending those staccato electronic sounds with more traditional Hip-Hop drums and bass, and he's still doing his thing today. As an aside, I think me and my man Pascal may be the only two people ever to blast the "Soundbombing 2" tape while barrelling through the Budapest area in an old Trabant. True story.

Mobb Deep : Rare Species (Modus Operandi)

It's already been two years this month since Prodigy passed. For this special episode, I thought it was worth pulling out a lesser-known track which also contains one of my favourite verses of his. Those of you who know this already will be aware that it came out on the soundtrack for "Soul in the Hole" (in the fine tradition of 90s soundtrack records that barely relate to the film), but it's actually a remix to an unreleased tune called "Reach". Classic Mobb dunn business all over, but the start of that second P verse...just too good. Havoc definitely kills it on the beat, with snapping drums over the top of some subtly clever sample work.

Black Moon : Freestyle

I'd forgotten quite how aggro this was! Buckshot is solo on the mic here with that real 90s grittiness over a flawless beat from Da Beatminerz. The "War Zone" LP was very different to "Enta Da Stage" - not as jazzy, definitely a different sound - but is not one to be overlooked.

A Tribe Called Quest ft. Consequence : Mind Power

The first two tracks in this section have been pretty gully, so for the second half we keep the flow sonically but take the lyrical aggression down a few notches. "Beats, Rhymes, and Life" is an LP that had to grow on me, but this track was always up there. The lyrical quality is there, drums are crispy as you like, and it's got a jazzy feel that could easily have fit onto either of their previous two albums.

DJ Honda & De La Soul : Trouble In The Water

Chilling things all the way out as we come to the end of this section, this is a really good De La track that may have passed some people by. From the second DJ Honda album comes this reflective song, which for me is absolutely made by that first verse, reminiscing on growing up.

Oddisee : After Thoughts

One of the many great instrumentals on Oddisee's "The Beauty In All" album. I didn't realise until doing some research that this is unbelievably popular on Spotify, which is pleasantly surprising. It's always good to find out that people appreciate quality music that the industry isn't pushing upon them!

Mary J. Blige : Good Woman Down

I only heard this 9th Wonder-produced track recently thanks to an article from the man Gino Sorcinelli, the man behind the excellent Micro-Chop blog. Mary is someone I firmly believe will one day have a film made of her life, and she gives just a small window here on this great song from "The Breakthrough". She's been through a lot, and thank goodness, she's still here and still on her game.

Agallah : Don't Wanna Be The Last

From around the period when Agallah was doing a lot of work with PCP/Dipset, this has been a drivetime favourite for me for the last three cars I've had! A hard one to find for quite a while, Agallah's 2004 "Doomsday" mixtape is the source for this one. Like the track that follows, if you enjoy hearing the kick drum get busy then this should be right up your street.

Camp Lo : Cookers

Chuck D tried to tell you - B-side wins again! From the quiet period between their storming debut "Uptown Saturday Night" and their underrated sophomore release "Let's Do It Again", the "Troubleman/Cookers" 12" let the world know that the Lo were still on it! Geechi and Cheeba go back and forth with ease over Ski's beat, one that clearly drew on the EEC kick drum mountain to smack harder than most.

Fat Joe ft. Armageddon : Find Out

Is that DJ Premier on the beat? Diamond D? Buckwild, perhaps? Nope, the legend Marley Marl reminding you that he fathered sampling/beat making in the way that many other great producers would do it today. That delicate acoustic guitar loop withstands an absolute battering from the heavy drums and bass Marley puts on, and Fat Joe has no problem slicing right through the middle or it all. This is from a white label 12", but you really want to pick up the "Don Cartagena" album for this and other gems.

Roni Size/Reprazent : Out Of The Game

Bristol, stand up! Even in the period when I really didn't mess with much drum & bass, I couldn't deny the "In The Møde" album. This hectic track was one of my favourites, largely off that moody, crime-thriller guitar riff. Smashing along at almost 180bpm, it still sounds masterfully under control.

8 Gold Rings & In The Loop MCs : Tribe Cipher

Here's a special treat for you - big thanks to Agent J and 8 Gold Rings for making it possible to include this month! The much-missed Manchester Hip-Hop club In The Loop was known not just for the great selections from DJ A-Up and Agent J, or the flavoursome hosting of Bedos, but for the monthly ciphers in which local MCs could step up and showcase their skills - ciphers from which a lot of great local MCs have emerged. Around the time of my "Manchester Marauders" exhibition, In The Loop connected with the then-nascent band that came to be known as 8 Gold Rings, and got them to soundtrack the month's cipher with a set of live renditions of A Tribe Called Quest instrumentals. Here we have just over 20 minutes of that absolutely fire session, with 8GR playing like a live mixtape while the vocalists battle for the month's crown.

Air Adam : Walk

An old beat I found while having a look through my archives - I couldn't hear an MC on it, but I found it's one I kept listening to so it's perfect for an instrumental bed here!

Geto Boys : Fuck A War

RIP Bushwick Bill. He had one of the more unique career paths, from dancer with the original Ghetto Boys, to MC with the reconstituted Geto Boys, solo releases, and eventually becoming a born-again Christian in a complete 180 to much of his old lyrical content. Right here, we're on the Geto Boys' second LP, "We Can't Be Stopped" (the one with the infamous album cover of Bill after he had shot himself in the eye [content warning]), and he goes solo on the mic putting the first George Bush and the Gulf War on full blast. The third verse goes a little off-piste with the message compared to the rest, and with the hook also being too short to really mix with, I did a little edit to just contain the first two verses and an instrumental outro for a nice blend.

E-40 ft. Keak da Sneak : Tell Me When To Go

"Jesus Christ had dreads, so shake 'em..." Bay Area classic material! For those of us outside the area, this was an anthem for the Hyphy movement, as E-40 and Keak lay down a little of the lifestyle - also illustrated in the wicked video. The first single from "My Ghetto Report Card" is just a certified banger, and guaranteed to make you move something. Surprisingly, the production was actually courtesy of an Atlanta native (crunk heavyweight Lil Jon), and it's almost entirely drums and percussion, with enough energy to make you want to throw something out of the window!

Zapp : Get Up Off The Wall

After the death of the great Roger Troutman, Zapp could have been forgiven for just packing up the whole thing for good. Fortunately for us, they're made of rare stuff, and after a few years off they returned. While they now are primarily concentrated on their live work, at which they are absolute masters, there have also been a couple of albums. "Zapp VI : Back By Popular Demand" gives us this track, with the air of classics like "Dance Floor". The CD is hard to find and incredibly expensive, so there's no shame in just going for a digital purchase here!

Ilajide : Don't Fake

If you haven't got "Heet Tape" yet, you're really missing out. Clear Soul Forces' Ilajide puts all the bump into reworking a classic 80s sample (which you may recognise, but which I won't name in case it's not cleared) and shows his rhyme skills into the bargain. It's just a genuinely fun track, and the video is in the same vein :)

The Chemical Brothers : Piku

The Chemical Brothers are one of a handful of groups I actually learned about from the old PlayStation game "Wipeout", and who coincidentally started DJing in the same student halls where I started to learn the craft! "Exit Planet Dust" is still my favourite LP from their catalogue, but "Dig Your Own Hole" definitely had tracks as well. This one I'd never paid that much attention to, but after a recent listen - and on realising the classic Motown sample they snuck in there - I was pleased to gain a new appreciation for it and find a spot for it here.

Ice-T & Ice Cube : Looters

Apologies for the sound quality, but here's a real rarity here for you! This was the unreleased title track for the soundtrack of the 1992 film that was eventually titled "Trespass" - until the L.A. Uprising happened. Ice-T and Ice Cube go hard on the mic over a beat that sounds like a Sir Jinx production, though I can't be sure. More so than the final title track (which I'm a big fan of), this one explicitly covers a lot of the plot of the actual film, so if you're trying to be efficient with your time... :) I chanced across this in a London used records shop, but your best chance of getting one of the few white label bootlegs is to hit Discogs.

Ry Cooder & Jim Keltner : King Of The Street

Finally, we close with the final track on the officially-released "Trespass" soundtrack album, a rock/blues (mostly) instrumental number that was a favourite of mine from the first listen! California's Ry Cooder plays many instruments, but on this track he shows his guitar chops alongside the skills of the legendary session drummer Jim Keltner. Aggressive, dramatic, pure flames.

Please remember to support the artists you like! The purpose of putting the podcast out and providing the full tracklist is to try and give some light, so do use the songs on each episode as a starting point to search out more material. If you have Spotify in your country it's a great way to explore, but otherwise there's always Youtube and the like. Seeing your favourite artists live is the best way to put money in their pockets, and buy the vinyl/CDs/downloads of the stuff you like the most!

Check out this episode!

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geeksperhour · 6 years

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Lead Generation on Twitter – 10 Steps to Grow Your Business

Twitter is where conversations happen. With a mammoth 336 million monthly active users, Twitter reigns as one of the most popular platforms for microblogging. Twitter is a busy place, where opinions, humor, news, and stories are shared by the minute. How can your business be a part of the conversation?

Why use Twitter for business?

What makes Twitter especially great for business is that, unlike Facebook and Instagram, the platform is less personal. Twitter is not a place where friends and families connect—it’s a place where celebrities, music artists, journalists, athletes, politicians, and of course, businesses connect with their respective audiences. In essence, people use Twitter to discover things that are new and interesting. Statistics show that companies that use Twitter average 2x more leads per month than those that don’t.

In this article, you’ll find 10 ways to generate leads for your business and create new opportunities for your sales team, using Twitter. There’s only one requirement: use a CRM software that can hyper-manage your Twitter account, and seamlessly funnel leads into your system. We suggest Zoho CRM, but it ultimately depends on what you expect from your CRM software. If you’re interested to know whether Zoho CRM would be a good fit, go ahead and do your research!

1) Build your profile

Perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of social selling is creating a profile that actually sells. Many businesses put significant time and resources into selling online while using an incomplete and incompetent profile. Your profile sends a strong message about who you are, what your mission is, and what you stand for.

When Twitter users find you on their timeline, they should be able to look into your profile and get a feel for what they need to know from a glimpse. Your profile should also include a way to contact you, in case a lead wants to do business. Therefore, either your office address, phone number, email address, or your website should be prominently displayed on your profile.

Twitter name & handle

You should use your business name as your Twitter name, and there’s no debate about that. Your Twitter name is your identity. You can be a little creative with your Twitter handle, but make sure that your Twitter handle can be easily associated with your brand, otherwise, people might get confused when they are trying to tweet to you.

Twitter profile image & banner

Along with your name, your profile image is how people identify you on their news feed. Use your logo as your profile image, or if you don’t have a logo, use a picture of your shop (now might be a good time to invest in a graphic designer). Your image will be cropped and displayed inside a circle, which narrows down your choice of design. Ideally, you’ll use either a circular logo, or a sized down logo with a solid color background.

For your Twitter banner, use an image that showcases your goals, your ideals, or your slogan. You can change your banner occasionally to mark a milestone, an update, or a significant moment. Make sure your official images are high-def, original and to scale.

Twitter bio

Your bio section is where you can really strike a chord with visitors. Write a short, straightforward, and rich description of your business, add a link to your website, and update where your business is located. This is also where you’ll display your contact information. When your profile looks solid, leads are more likely to reach out to you or visit your website for more details.

2) Create a Twitter landing page

Once you have your profile set up and ready to make waves, you need to do one more thing before you begin—a Twitter landing page. This is an essential step, which can often be forgotten about. Your goal with redirecting your leads from your Twitter profile to another site is to collect their information i.e fill in a form. For this purpose, we don’t recommend you use your website’s homepage.

Make sure this page is designed to convince the visitor to enter their email address so that you can start a conversation outside of Twitter. You can add new leads into your CRM software easily, monitor the traffic that Twitter brings in, and measure how your social selling strategy is working out for you.

List the landing page link on your bio, and add it to any tweet that’s relevant. You can track the number of clicks that a link receives using Bitly, a URL shortener, customizer, and tracker. Every time you make a tweet with a link, you can compare the numbers with the site traffic to see how the tweet is performing.

3) Tweet!

Twitter is primarily a social media platform, rather than a sales and marketing channel. Therefore, tweeting to socialize should be a priority over tweeting for sales and promotion. Your followers, even the most loyal fans, would not put up with an account that only tweets to sell or promote all the time.

Twitter is not about you, it’s about your relationship with the world. You have to build relationships, be helpful and wholesome. Make it a habit to write tweets that your followers would gain from, not the other way around. Here are a few approaches to tweeting to keep in mind:

Keep a 30/60/10 balance

Lead Forensics reports that businesses need to balance the content of their tweets to optimize the viewing experience of their followers. Therefore,

30% should be content you own, such as blogs or videos.

60% should be curated content, which is just about any media that you don’t own but is worth sharing.

10% should be promotional content.

Patience and persistence are essential for social selling. However, if you think your sales would be hurt if only 10% of your tweets are promotional, you’d be wrong. Your followers become leads based on how informative, engaging, and exciting your content is, which is a much better place to start a professional relationship with.

Find the right time to tweet

The key to generating leads isn’t just about posting the right content but posting at the right time. You need most your target audience to be online when your tweet goes out for maximum impact. Depending on the type of business, your target audience, and the industry you’re in, the optimal time, or day of the week to post may vary.

CoSchedule aggregated the findings of 23 studies to conclude that between 12-3 p.m., as well as another peak at 5 p.m, are the best times of the day to send a tweet out, while Wednesday is the overall best day to tweet on. For increased retweets and clickthroughs, tweeting specifically at noon and between 5-6 p.m has shown to be effective.

Using #HashTags

Twitter is about what’s trending! Hashtags play a major role in making sure your tweets reach the right audience. Twitter users who are looking for something specific online generally use hashtags to find it on the platform. Use this as your trump card for generating leads.

You can find what’s trending on hashtags.org, compare different keywords, and tweet with the most popular one. Generally, tweets with 1-2 hashtags tend to perform better than tweets with 3-4 hashtags, so keep it minimal! This makes sure your tweet reaches the right audience, who are likely to follow you.

Image & text

Twitter allows you to insert images and videos with your text tweets. Here are two statistics from Buffer that you need to keep in mind when tweeting:

Tweets with images get 2x times the engagement than those without.

Tweets with less than 100 characters get 17% more engagement.

Ideally, a tweet with 1-2 short sentences, an image, and 1-2 hashtags is the perfect balance you should be aiming for. However, that’s up to you! Try and experiment with different types of tweets to see how they fare and plan your next tweet accordingly.

4) Search for potential customers

Having a solid Twitter game brings you leads, but a big part of social selling involves looking for leads scattered across the platform. Zoho CRM’s social media space is your gateway to discover the users who are reaching out to you. You can follow keywords that are related to your industry or the solution you offer and get notified every time someone tweets about it.

If a Twitter user tags you directly in their tweet, you’ll get notified immediately to respond. However, many people might still tweet about you without tagging you, which is where searching comes into play. If your brand is already a part of the conversation, making a statement and a sale will be easy—they’ve already shown interest in your company so they could be one nudge away from doing business.

For example, if a user named Linda tweets asking, “Hello Twitter! What do you think about Dunder Mifflin Paper Company?”, chime in with a tweet saying, “Hey Linda! Take a look at our customer testimonials to know about us: https://ift.tt/2zIOwKu;.

Tweets addressed directly at you are microscopic compared to tweets looking for something or someone like you. People know what they want, but they don’t know how to articulate it. Sometimes, people don’t know that the product or the service you provide even exists! Hence, looking for tweets from users looking for a solution can be a challenge. Explaining how you can help them is something else.

For example, if a user named Brandon tweets asking, “How do you people send a reply email as soon as you get one? I can’t make my customers wait!”, it’s clear that he’s unaware that there are tools that can automate the response. So chime in with a tweet saying, “Hi Brandon. We’ve created a tool that can do just what you wanted. Click here for a demo!”.

5) Search for tweets about competitors

Your competitors’ Twitter accounts can also serve as a great source of leads. When you set up your account, make sure to follow your competitors in the market, no matter how big or small they are. If you closely monitor their activity on Twitter, you can win their leads and customers for yourself with the right moves.

If you find an angry tweet fired at them from a dissatisfied customer, swoop in and do a bit of marketing for your product/service.

If you find one of their users looking for an alternative to them, suggest yourself in a tweet!

If your competitor was able to reach out to a lead who was looking for a solution before you could, don’t hesitate to tweet to them nevertheless! You can still win their business as long as they haven’t made a decision.

If a competitor’s lead has doubts with whom to do business with, draw a comparison chart and tweet it to them.

It’s worth noting that although you’re trying to make a sale to one of your competitor’s dissatisfied customers or undecided leads, they might still consider it poaching. Healthy competition between businesses is important but we all have to draw a line somewhere, and that can be different for each company. Keep that in mind when you attempt anything mentioned in this step. Maintain a polite, civil, and helpful persona when you show up in a twitter exchange uninvited.

6) Engage in Twitter conversations

On the topic of uninvited twitter exchanges, here’s another gold mine to dig out leads on Twitter: conversations. Every social media platform is riddled with memes, hate, cat videos, and trolls, but underneath all of that, people still do have meaningful, productive conversations. Take part in them, or initiate one. Be more than just a facade for marketing by adding to the human moments.

Find industry influencers

Industry influencers are popular spokespeople, journalists, and prominent leaders who are actively engaged with their community. Whenever there’s a discussion going on, take part in it without an intent to do marketing. You need to build a reputation among people for being knowledgeable, helpful, and rational. At the end of the day, word of mouth will be your strongest source of leads.

If you can catch the eye of these influencers, you could end up with an endorsement. Influencer marketing can be powerful, and showcasing your strengths, beliefs, and passion through these conversations can be your way to win them over. Buzzsumo is a great place to start with, if you’re looking for influencers.

Tell a story

Everyone loves a good story and Twitter is a popular microblogging platform. How convenient! Tell the world about your customers, your partners, your employees, your milestones, or your office events, which can generate conversations online. You need to give your business a personality on Twitter, a humanizing aspect that draws the attention of leads.

Talk about what’s trending

…As long as you have something relevant to say. Tweeting your opinion on just any current event can make you look stupid, and you don’t want that! Although this advice bodes well for every one of us, businesses need to take this more seriously. If you’re a local dairy supplier, tweet about the goodness of milk, the plight of hybrid cows, or maybe the recent flood in your town. That’s pretty much what your audience expect from you!

Twitter chat

Every week or so, popular Twitter accounts related to your industry tweet to discuss a topic. You can find them by their dedicated hashtag, and they usually follow a schedule. This can be a great place to showcase your knowledge on the topic, engage with like-minded people, and of course, find leads. If you are confident with your followers, you can even start your own Twitter chat session!

7) Provide customer support

Every business needs to provide customer support over social media channels. Customers are more comfortable to reach out to you in the channel they prefer, and if it’s Twitter, then so be it! In case you haven’t, you need to start providing customer support over Twitter, primarily for customer convenience, but also for marketing optics.

Happy customers talk about their experiences with others. When you do customer support on Twitter, you draw attention—everyone’s watching you, which can be good or bad, depending on how you wish to capitalize on it. When you show commitment towards helping out a customer, it shows the world that you care. Make sure you respond promptly, be gentle and understanding in your responses, and take responsive actions to turn a bad customer experience into a good one.

8) Host a contest

Another proven method to gain attention, followers, and start trending on Twitter is to host a contest. Online contests have a special place in the book of marketing. You can experiment with several types of contests, with different prizes depending on what you’re planning to do with the buzz you generate.

One of the most popular types of contests involves asking followers to retweet one of your tweets to be eligible for the prize. When your tweet is shared across a huge chunk of your followers, you’ll get free exposure to uninformed users, who will be curious to check your business out. You can also urge users to tweet with a particular hashtag, preferably with your business name in it. Contests could involve asking users to write a caption for your new product, to suggest a new flavor to the menu, or participate in your branding in some constructive way.

As you can tell, the whole point of organizing a Twitter contest is to generate buzz through tweets and retweets from your followers. You can deliberate over which idea to go with, the scale of the contest, the prize involved, and the rules, but make sure your plan exposes you to new leads.

9) Talk about yourself

Now comes the time to talk about the 10 in the 60/30/10 rule that was mentioned earlier—promoting your products and services. Twitter is a social media platform, but once you’re social enough, you can use it as a marketing platform. That’s what you’re ultimately there for, right?

Twitter is effective for building hype, due to how hashtags work. Tweets about an upcoming release, update, webinar, or meet up can do wonders for your brand. You can also announce offers, discounts, bundles and other promotional stunts on Twitter, as they tend to reach a wide audience faster than an email.

Twitter can also be used to discuss your products, post promotional videos, share customer stories, and release public statements. The only catch is to make sure your tweets generate interest. This involves producing quality promotional content and having enough of an audience to reach (which shouldn’t be hard if you follow everything mentioned so far).

10) Advertisement

Once the size of your business grows, so should the scale of your marketing. Your followers, influencers, and partners provide you with free marketing, but if you want to go big, you need to spend some money. You can grow your business by promoting certain tweets, or your entire profile. Twitter has a comprehensive guide on how to do advertisements on their platform, which is worth checking out.

You can use Twitter Cards to promote tweets that you think deserve a larger than usual audience. There are several cards which can be used, depending on what you’re trying to promote. App cards are best suited for promoting apps, since the ad appears with a download button. The player card is best suited for embedding a video or an audio track with player tools. You can learn more about cards here.

You can promote an individual tweet, or your entire profile, in order to reach a wide audience and increase your followers, CTR, and sign-ups. You can also create campaigns with a specific budget and schedule in mind. These campaigns run until the last date you specify, or until the budget runs out, whichever happens first. You can learn more about campaigns here.

Grow your business on Twitter now!

There is no one-step solution for generating leads on Twitter. Create a solid profile, socialize before you sell, be a part of the conversation, always be on the lookout for leads, and build a strong campaign. Twitter is more professional than Facebook, yet more personal than LinkedIn, which makes it the perfect platform for businesses to discover new leads and business opportunities.

Throughout the process of building up your Twitter, one thing to always keep in mind is to follow up with your leads. What’s the point of finding them if you can’t keep them? Every time you take a user to your Twitter landing page, you’re bringing in someone excited to know about you. Time is of the essence here, and it’s important to make hay while the sun shines. Make sure they’re added into your CRM and a salesperson is assigned to them instantly. Send them a friendly email, and get ready to sell!

What are your thoughts on finding leads on Twitter? Do you have anything to add to this list? Please leave them in the comment section below, and we’ll get back to you.

This post can also be found on Medium.

The post Lead Generation on Twitter – 10 Steps to Grow Your Business appeared first on Zoho Blog.

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media-valtimes · 6 years

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ROUND II OF THE MINI REFUSE (HAHA THIS JOKE STILL ISN’T FUNNY)

PART I: BLACK MIRROR//SAN JUNIPERO

While I was a fan of all of the Black Mirror episodes that we covered in class, this one really stood out to me. Not because it was scary, or sad, but because it was shockingly happy and sweet. The first episode of Black Mirror that I ever saw was Shut Up and Dance, and if I’m being honest it was scary. I watched it late at night at a sleepover, and it was essentially the equivalent of watching a horror or thriller movie for me. That’s the atmosphere of most of Black Mirror’s episodes. But San Junipero has an overwhelmingly positive energy, especially compared to the others. I’m sure most of us have thought about what life would be like if we grew up in a different decade, and the technology in this reality makes that possible- sort of. I really loved this take on immortality, because it really does seem like something that could be possible in the future. I also think that this episode posed an interesting question to its audience: if you had the opportunity to live forever, would you take it? They make it look so appealing! You can live in whatever decade you want, potentially with your loved ones, in a place where you don’t have to worry about anything. When I was younger, and this is gonna get morbid for a second, I always thought that I wanted to die young. But life is unpredictable! I might meet a person that I want to be with forever tomorrow. Or maybe I already know that person. Or maybe we won’t even have a choice of whether or not we want to live forever in the future! The point is, nobody knows what tomorrow holds and that’s part of what makes this episode so cool.

Another thing that I wanted to talk about is the 80s aesthetic throughout the episode. Throwing it back to the 80s has become increasingly popular in modern media, with Stranger Things, The Goldbergs, Freaks and Geeks, The Americans, the list goes on, and I love it. I’m one of those annoying teenagers who constantly says “man, I just belong in a different generation”, and the 80s, while not my top pick, have always been very attractive to me. Performing in The Wedding Singer this year also opened up my eyes to how fun 80s style really is. It was really refreshing to have a Black Mirror episode take place primarily in the 80s, especially when they are usually set in the not-so-distant future. Additionally, I loved the LGBTQ representation in this episode. I also thought that Yorkie’s story was one that a lot of people would be able to relate to, especially in older generations. Many don’t act on their sexuality for their whole lives out of fear of being publicly shamed, and Yorkie’s story is a perfect example that it’s never too late to pursue what you love. Good job Black Mirror, you made me cry instead of jump, at least for one episode.

(get ready for lots of gifs, after that gif comment in class)

PART II: THE KILLING JOKE

It’s no secret that I am not Batman’s biggest fan, but I really did enjoy this comic. Prior to this unit I was 100% team John Green on this debate. Batman doesn’t even have any powers what’s so great about him anyway?!?!

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I still keep some of my opinions from BB (before Batman), for example, I still think that Batman would be nothing without his villains, especially the Joker, but I now think that I understand why people love him so much. No one person is purely good or purely evil, and that’s what Batman is all about, in my eyes anyway. I also like the way that Batman is depicted in this comic, especially compared to The Dark Knight Returns. Batman in this version is much more focused on actually helping people as opposed to “fighting his inner darkness”. The Killing Joke Batman is a Batman that I can get behind. He still has his dramatic voice overs, but they aren’t so ridiculously over the top and cheesy. I also really like the art work of The Killing Joke, and the panels are way easier to follow. AND THOSE MOVIE LIKE TRANSITIONS! For someone not too familiar with comics, the cinematic approach made reading The Killing Joke much more enjoyable for me.

I mentioned that I still believe that The Joker is the real star of Batman, and I think that this particular comic strengthens that argument. The reader gets a sense of how evil he really is, but also the extent of his sanity. He’s chosen insanity to avoid dealing with his trauma, and the reader is more sympathetic to the Joker because of this. “Ignorance is bliss”, and the Joker is really just this common saying to an extreme. He would rather not feel anything at all than feel the pain that he was subjected to in his life, and I think that everyone can understand that, regardless of whether or not they agree with his choice. I particularly love the quote “I’ve demonstrated there’s no difference between me and everyone else! All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day”.

PART III: THE SHINING

I did see this movie before we watched it in class, and I watched it again after, but I really valued the discussion that came from our group screening. I wanted to watch The Shining because of its “classic” status, and it also helps that it’s ranked #60 on IMDb’s top rated films. In fact on IMDb, the tagline that’s posted is “a masterpiece of modern horror”. As soon as the word masterpiece is tied to something, there’s a 99% chance I’m going to want to check it out, yes I’m a pretentious snob like that.

I think part of the reason that I love this movie is that I’m not one who’s immediately turned off by a complicated and ambiguous story line, in fact it intrigues me. The Shining was like this year’s Psycho for me. It checked off all of the things that I would want from a movie: a unique score, dedication to character, innovative shots, and a plot that makes you think. Having a recognizable score is an amazing feat in filmmaking, and I think that The Shining accomplished that. Sure, you probably wouldn’t be able to hum a few bars like you could Jaws, or Star Wars, but you know it when you hear it, and knowing it when I heard it landed me a quick chat on twitter with one of my favourite social media personalities. It’s pretty crazy to me that Jonah Green was mentioned in my very first blog post over 2 years ago, and I’m still an active supporter of him to this day. Jonah has stopped posting regular videos, but over the past few weeks he has been doing nightly livestreams where he’s been talking about some more thought provoking topics that people in the comments suggest. During one of these streams he walked through a room where someone was watching a movie, and I caught just a couple seconds of what sounded like The Shining. A couple of hours after the stream he tweeted that he would be chatting with people for a little bit while watching some horror movies, and what happened next is as follows:

(probably what my face looked like after that exchange // side note: how is Jack Nicholson’s face so simultaneously hilarious & horrifying??)

In summary I’d like to thank Kubrick, Mr. Edwards, and the Academy for this award. In all seriousness, this was cool, but really it’s a testament to the power of film! I’ve only seen this movie 3 times but I was able to recognize it from a small audio clip! That’s how you know you’re doing something right. The classic Kubrick ambiguity of this movie only makes me want to watch it again and again. The characters are so defined and fully realized that I would definitely be extremely uncomfortable around Nicholson in real life, or want to give Duvall a hug. The amount of continuous tracking shots made me so excited (I mean, Birdman is one of my favourite movies if that tells you anything). I’m not a horror movie junkie by any means, but this is a movie I know I will continue to enjoy for years. To finish off this section let’s take a listen to that bit of the score that I’ve been going on about shall we? (skip to about 3:58)

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PART IV: GENGHIS KHAN

My favourite, everyone’s favourite. It’s finally made it’s return.

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This is probably one of my favourite music videos of all time. When my good pal Lacy sent it to me and said “we should learn the dance”, I’m gonna be honest I wasn’t expecting too much. Little did I know that opening up that link would have such an impact on my life.

If this weren’t sent to me, I can almost guarantee I would’ve never stumbled upon the masterpiece of Genghis Khan (the video, not the cruel emperor). Honestly though, all jokes aside, I think this is a great video for a few reasons.

1. That dance sequence really is spectacular, 10/10 choreography

2. It showcases a family with two dads in a normal (ish) way

3. Catchy tune

4. The song is much more meaningful alongside the video component

5. Face jewelry??

6. Visually pleasing shots with that 80s vibe again

7. Singing and dancing guards! Especially the little penguin flap move starting at 2:32

8. The best dance move ever at 2:55

9. Edwards put it on our grade eleven exam, which made me feel so much better after having an emotional break down from being late

10. The song never got too popular, so I don’t hate it for being overplayed

As a gift to the world, I cut a particular clip which is my favourite part of the whole video, so I hope you like it.

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PART V: EDWARDS

Here we go. What a crazy journey we’ve been on together, am I right ladies? I totally copied Brynne with this one, but there’s no other way I’d rather finish off this post. Edwards, we’ve been sharin’ laughs together since ‘13, how crazy is that? Back when I was obsessed with Grey’s Anatomy and the bottoms of your jeans weren’t ripped to shreds. Man those were the days. One thing that I won’t forget from grade nine is getting an essay back after you marked it and seeing scribbles all over the front page. My first thought was “wow, that bad?” but it turned out it was just the art of your son who wanted to help you mark. To tell the truth, I think you probably added a couple chicken scratches for your own satisfaction, but that’s beside the point.

Sadly, I’ve only got two other chicken scrath- I mean yearbook signatures from you (what was grade nine &ten me thinking??) but they’re pure gold.

I don’t think I’ll ever live down this Grey’s Anatomy thing, but don’t worry, I’m not cringing as hard as Kepner is about it. Also, you’re eating your words now huh? You WISH I didn’t take your grade 12 class, you gotta be careful what you put out into the universe!

I’m only kidding, I know I’m your favourite student, and yes, I know that you can’t reply to this post to deny it. I really just wanted to give you the shoutout that you deserve for putting up with me for 5 WHOLE YEARS. Think of all the time you could have saved only marking normal-length blog posts instead of the novels that you get from me. Think of all of that time you could’ve spent making fun of other kids instead of just me (and Brynne obviously, you are ruthless with that one). Think of all of the laughter that you’d have accumulated within you because you weren’t exposed my quick wit and hilarious jokes. I wanted to thank you for always being there to share a laugh, a new video, or a difficult conversation. You’ve done so much for so many students and I know that I will never forget the impact you’ve had on my life as not only a teacher, but a role model. I actually remember the first day of high school, I was doing a tour of the building with my link crew leaders and as we were walking through the english hallway one of them asked, “Do any of you have Mr. Edwards this year?”. I looked down at my timetable and sure enough, there you were for second period english. They then said something like “Aw he’s an awesome teacher, you’re gonna love him”, but that was such an understatement. I know that I will be added to the bottom of the never ending list of kids who comes back to visit you, but I don’t mind. You’ll be at the top of my list of teachers who inspired me to be unapologetically myself, and that’s something I can’t thank you for enough.

Alright, we’ve made it to that part of the post where I talk about the best Viral Friday submissions and I’m very proud to say that the class actually liked my picks this year. So, since I don’t have to fight anyone, I can simply appreciate the best submissions from the whole class (my own included obviously)

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