there are so many books in this beautiful world. many of them bad

tumblr is wild because you’ll see a post that’s vagueing about another popular post and go like huh yeah you’re right. but then you finally see the post that post was talking about and it’s just literally not what the person talking about it claimed it was

post on your dash: i cannot believe you’re all uncritically reblogging that post where OP implies all dogs should be thrown into the ocean and killed

original post when you stumble across it the next day: i think maybe people should be more careful with introducing dogs that don’t do well with crowds into crowded spaces

We laugh so that we do not cry...

Watch the full episode here

pre-orders for prints of my sold-out collection of miniature moth and butterfly paintings are open now through april 30th, 2024

pre-order now

this is the best album release of all time because where else are you going to get unironic takes like this and then even get a few hundred people to agree with it

Once while I was at work a grown ass man told me "no matter how tough you act you'll never be a man, just like I'll never be a woman" and I know he MEANT like "I'm tougher than you because women are weak" but I heard it in Queer and went "Oh.... sweetheart" and he just completely recoiled it was insane

It was just the most out of pocket misogyny I've ever received, like why would he have said that

"You're a woman": Would be meaner if I wasn't in girl mode but okay good start

"Women are lesser": Heard it before, what else

"You'll never be a man": Bit weird but it tracks

"Just like I'll never be a woman": .... Why do I suddenly feel bad for you. Like you suck hot shit but I wanna give you a pep talk. You know you don't have to be a man if you don't want to be, right? I'm still kicking you out of this store, though. What the fuck is going on

long (like ridiculously long) rant about watcher entertainment

Whilst the vast majority of the response to the watcher drama has been negative I still have seen a few people expressing opinions along the lines of ‘oh its just $6’  ‘shouldn't creators be paid for their work’ etc. I also think this situation is getting a lot of attention from people who don't necessarily watch Watcher, or haven’t keep up with them in years so here is my breakdown of why people are unhappy with the announcement that Watcher will be putting ALL upcoming content behind a $6 a month streaming service (with the exception of the premiere episode of each season going to Youtube.) 

The issue is not that it's $6.

The success of other internet companies like dropout and smosh is proof people are willing to pay for content they enjoy and to support independent content creators. I personally have given money to kickstarters, patreons, digital downloads etc in the past. But I do that because I know I’m valued as a fan with and without my money. I still get access to content on youtube for free. Even Dropout, who is a much larger and more expensive operation than Watcher, releasing 5 show a week, still maintains a steady Youtube presence.

The thing with these internet companies is they can be successful in creating something but they do have to understand that you are on the internet. You're not netflix or HBO or hulu or whatever. Watcher’s obsession with creating ‘television-calibre content’ worth $6 a month whilst also only having one show a week is unrealistic. They want to be independent creators but also television producers… but you’re not!  They hate being youtubers so much but YOU ARE. That’s how you gained a fanbase in the first place and you were successful at it! If you’re not happy being a youtuber that’s fine, move on and do something else. But you can’t expect it to be funded by the fans. So many famous artists create content they care less about that has a larger audience, and that in turn funds the stuff they DO care about. If you’re so dedicated to making expensive, high-quality productions you should be using these smaller cheaper shows to save money and fund them, rather than forcing everyone of your fans to pay a monthly subscription fee that I’m sorry, just isnt worth it or is simply unaffordable for the majority of your audience who you have now essentially told aren’t welcome or valued by you. And which one is it? 

Such a large percentage of your audience are casual viewers too. Why cut out that completely? What fans are you expecting to follow you to this ? Your most dedicated fans are there because they like Ryan and Shane, so why not push that? Are you trying to appeal to your fans or are you trying to make the content you want. There’s no clear creative direction that makes sense with this move and that’s why people aren’t supporting you. 

Also I’m sorry but how can we suddenly trust the content is gonna improve once we start funding it when there’s already been so many missteps both in their content and their business. Look at how many fans have said Ghost Files and Mystery Files have started feeling phoned in. Their patreon has been mismanaged for years, they barely promote it and the perks on there aren't really worth it (but they have 6000 paying members because people can and do want to support them!). They go months having barely any merch. There are ways to make money on youtube, they’re just not doing it well . 

And I’m sorry. But there is just absolutely no reason to have 25 employees. Shows like Survival mode should be cheap and easy to produce, and help bring in money to support larger ventures like ghost files. So why are there 18 people credited for a video of you playing Minecraft? And of course I don’t want people to lose their jobs. But continuing with this is going to cause EVERYONE to lose their jobs regardless. 

They also barely have a plan for their new content. People watch for Ryan and Shane, you KNOW THAT. So why is your first new big show hiring the worth it boys and doing a globe-trotting, crazily expensive show. Are you even really expanding your content if you’re still sticking to a one-video-a-week schedule with no present plan to change that? They have a survey for subscribers to vote which past show to bring back, but there’s obviously a major budget difference between filming something like Weird Wonderful World and something like SD&D&D… or at least there should be but there isn't when you employ 20 people to make one video. There’s such a clear lack of thought put into it that makes me even less likely to want to support. 

I want to say that they probably expected a negative backlash and thought they could just wait it out… but did they? Because WHY did they hype this up like it was an insane new announcement fans would go wild for. WHY do this several days before you have live shows where you let fans ask questions live to your faces? So much of this roll out makes absolutely no sense and makes Ryan, Shane, and Steve look so ridiculously out-of-touch with their fanbase, which only makes fans feel even less supportive. 

I think their defenders think we want to see Watcher crash and burn but the majority of us don't. I want them to be successful but this isn't the way to do it and I truly do believe it’s going to ruin their company. Unfortunately as much as I love them, I wont be supporting them. 

It should be illegal to require that any device or software connect to the internet just to run. I shouldn't need to log in with microsoft to open any of their programs on my local computer. All games should be playable without access to an online server. All media you pay for should be downloadable to local disk as a raw file and if they don't like that because they know you'll share it and upload it, tough shit. They took your money already, they'll live.

smartphone storage plateauing in favor of just storing everything in the cloud is such dogshit. i should be able to have like a fucking terabyte of data on my phone at this point. i hate the fucking cloud

this is gonna make me sound very Old Man Yells At Cloud but i just hate how many things in my life assume i will always have access to a quick, reliable internet connection and almost cease to function without it. Obviously certain things Have To Have An Internet Connection, but i want to be able to listen to music if my service is bad. i want to still watch movies if Netflix is down. i want to have a working map when i can’t get a cell signal. nearly every tech product these days bears the fingerprint of the extremely internet-rich places they are developed, high rent offices in Seattle, San Francisco, etc.. I think often the idea of the internet not being available is so remote to them it doesn’t even factor in to development. i remember when the Xbox One was debuted and Microsoft was almost mockingly like “if you don’t have reliable fast internet, then don’t bother buying this”, and there was such backlash they completely went back on so much of that. But now that attitude is just the tech norm.

No you're right and you should say it

My wife (a Professional IT Nerd) constantly tells people There Is No Cloud, It's Just Someone Else's Computer. The idea that you're just putting something on another computer and not in a Magical Cloud doesn't seem to occur to a lot of people.

Fanfic tiktok is wild... I see so many people saying shit like "I could never read anything below 60k!!", or "What story can you even tell in under 5k words?" or "A oneshot below 10k isn't even a story!" or "I always filter completed fics by 100k< only!"

And I'm like...

A) which fandoms are you reading fics for where you have this kind of offerings on the regular?

B) have you heard of short stories? If you truly think every story NEEDS to be longform to connect with people, I sincerely feel sorry for you.

C) Average novel length is between 50k to 100k. I'm sorry, but CONSISTENTLY demanding fic writers to push out fics of that length is insane. Just think about it: YOU DEMAND AUTHORS TO PUT OUT FICS THAT COMPARE TO COMMERCIAL NOVELS IN LENGTH (AND QUALITY) AS A BASELINE.

Yall are wilding.

It’s really interesting when you go to the AO3 filter for a small fandom and there is a great diversity of languages the fics are written in. Like there aren’t many fans but they are world wide.

Russians love obscure period dramas. From my observation.

ssaadd. gouache watercolor

the cashier at barnes & noble just gave me this duck at checkout and they said “i give these to children and people with a certain vibe.”

floored to know something about me aligns with this duck